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LOUISE  DF.  LA  RAIME  ("Ouida'^;. 


CHANDOS. 


A  NOVEL. 


By   "OUIDA," 

AviJior  oj  "Strathmore,"  "Under  Two  Flags,"  "Wanda"  "MotM^' 
"Othmar"  "Tricotrin,"  etc.,  etc. 


"  God  and  Man  and  Hope  abandon  me, 
But  I  to  them  and  to  myself  remain  constant." 

—Shelley. 

"  Treason  doth  never  prosper.    What's  the  reason? 
Why,  when  it  prospers,  none  dare  call  it  treason." 

—Sir  John  HiRRiNGroiC: 


NEW  YORK: 

A,   L.  BUKT.  PUBLISHER. 


CHAN  DOS. 


PROEM. 

TWO     Y  O  W  S  . 

It  was  the  sultry  close  of  a  midsummer  night  in  the  heart 
Df  Loudon. 

lu  all  the  narrow  streets  about  Westminster,  and  stretch- 
ing downward  to  the  dens  of  the  city  or  the  banks  of  the 
river,  there  were  the  roar  of  traffic  and  the  glare  of  midnight; 
the  throngs  were  jostling  each  other,  the  unscreened  gas-jets 
of  the  itinerant  stalls  were  flaring  yellow  in  the  stillness  of  the 
air,  the  screaming  of  ballad-singers  pierced  shrilly  above  the 
incessant  noise  of  wheels,  the  shouting  of  coster-mongers, 
butchers,  oyster-venders,  and  fried-fish-sellers  added  its  up- 
roar to  the  pandemonium,  and  the  steam  and  stench  of  hot 
drinks  and  of  rotting  vegetables  blended  with  the  heaviness  of 
smoke  borne  down  by  the  heat  and  the  tempestuous  oppression 
of  the  night.  Above,  the  sky  was  dark,  and  little  illumined 
by  the  crescent  of  a  young  and  golden  moon;  but  across  the 
darkness  now  and  then,  across  the  narrow  strip  that  piled  roofs 
and  towering  spires  and  crushed-up  walls  alone  gave  sight  of, 
a  falling  star  shot  swiftly  down  the  clouds — in  fleeting  memento 
and  reminder  of  all  the  glorious  world  of  forest  and  of  lake,  of 
rushing  river  and  of  deep  fern-glade,  of  leafy  shelter  lying 
cool  in  mountain-shadows,  and  of  sea-waves  breaking  upon 
wet  brown  rocks,  which  lay  beyond,  and  were  forgotten  here 
in  the  stress  of  trade,  in  the  strife  of  crowds,  in  the  cramped 
toil  of  poverty,  and  in  the  wealth  of  mingled  nations.  Few  in 
town  that  night  looked  up  at  the  shooting  star  as  it  flashed  its 
fiery  passage  above  the  dull,  leaden,  noxious,  gas-lit  streets; 
none,  indeed,  except  perhaps  here  and  there  a  young  dreamer, 
with  threadbare  coat  and  mad  but  sweet  ambitions  for  all  that 
was  impossible — or  some  woman,  young,  haggard,  painted, 
half  drunk,  whose  aching  eyes  were  caught  by  it,  and  whose 
sodden  memory  went  wearily  back  to  a  long-buried  child- 


6  CHANDOS. 

hood;  when  the  stars  were  out  over  the  moor-laud  of  a  cot- 
tage  home,  and  childish  won;ler  had  watched  them  rise  over 
the  black  edge  of  ricks  through  the  little  lozenge  of  the  lattice, 
and  sleep  had  come  under  their  light,  haiDpily,  innocently, 
haunted  by  no  terrors,  to  the  clear  music  of  a  mother's  spin- 
ning-song. Save  these,  none  thought  of  the  star  as  it  dropped 
down  above  the  jagged  wilderness  of  roofs:  the  crowd  was 
looking  elsewhere — to  the  lighted  entrance  of  the  Lower  House. 
The  ministers  who  sat  in  the  Commons  were  about  to  leave, 
after  a  night  of  unusual  national  interest. 

The  multitude  had  gathered  thickly,  swelled  by  every  passer- 
by who,  drawn  into  the  vortex,  had  hung  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  concourse,  and  stopped  in  turn  to  pause  and  stare,  and 
hear  the  gossi])  of  St.  Stephen's.  There  had  been,  as  it  was 
known,  a  powerful  and  heated  debate,  a  political  crisis  of  de- 
cisive eminence  —  of  some  joeril,  moreover,  to  the  country, 
from  a  rash  war  policy  which  had  been  urged  upon  the  exist- 
ing ministry,  which  must,  it  had  been  feared,  have  resigned  to 
escaj^e  stooping  to  measures  forced  on  it  by  the  opposition; 
the  false  position  had  been  avoided  by  the  genius  of  one  man 
alone;  the  government  had  stood  firm,  and  had  vanquished  its 
foes,  through  the  mighty  ability  of  its  chief  statesman — one 
who,  more  fortunate  than  Pitt  in  the  brilliant  success  of  his 
measures  at  home  and  abroad,  was  often  called,  like  Pitt,  the 
Great  Commoner. 

Yet  it  was  a  title,  perhajos,  that  scarcely  suited  him;  for 
he  was  patrician  to  the  core — jDatrician  in  pride,  in  name,  in 
blood,  and  in  caste,  though  he  disdained  all  coronets.  You 
could  not  have  lowered  him;  also,  you  could  not  have  en- 
nobled him.  He  was  simply  and  intrinsically  a  great  man. 
At  the  same  time,  he  was  the  haughtiest  of  aristocrats — too 
haughty,  by  all  the  Bourbon  and  Plantagenet  blood  of  his 
line,  ever  to  stoop  to  the  patent  of  a  present  earldom  or  a 
marquisate  of  the  new  creation. 

The  crowds  pressed  closest  and  densest  as  one -by  one  his 
colleagues  appeared,  passing  to  their  carriages;  and  his  name 
ran  breathlessly  down  the  people's  ranks:  they  trusted  him, 
they  honored  him,  they  were  proud  of  him,  as  this  country,  so 
naturally  and  strongly  conservative  in  its  instincts,  however 
radical  it  be  in  its  reasonings,  is  proud  of  its  aristocratic  lead- 
ers. They  were  ready  to  cheer  him  to  the  echo  the  moment 
lie  appeared;  specially  ready  to-night,  for  he  had  achieved  a 
signal  victory,  and  the  populace  always-^ense  success.  At 
last  he  came — a  tall  and  handsome  man,  very  fair,  and  of 
splendid  bearing,  about  fifty  years  of  age,  and  with  a  physiog- 


CHANDOS.  7 

nomy  that  showed  both  the  habit  and  the  power  of  command. 
He  was  satiated  to  weariness  with  public  homage;  but  he  ac- 
knowledged the  greetings  of  the  peoi^le  as  they  rang  on  the 
night  air  with  a  kindly,  if  negligent,  courtesy — the  courtesy  of 
a  grand  seigneur.  At  his  side  was  a  boy,  his  only  son,  a  mere 
child  of  some  seven  years.  Indulged  in  his  every  inclination, 
he  had  been  taken  to  the  House  that  evening  by  a  good-nat- 
ured peer,  to  a  seat  under  the  clock,  and  had  for  the  first  time 
heard  his  father  speak — heard,  with  his  eyes  glittering,  and  his 
cheeks  flushed,  and  his  heart  beating,  in  a  passionate  triumph 
and  an  enthusiastic  love  much  beyond  his  years;  with  a  silent 
vow,  moreover,  in  his  childish  thoughts,  to  go  and  do  likewise 
in  his  manhood. 

"  That  boy  will  be  a  great  man,  if — if  he  doesn^t  have  too 
much  genius,'^  the  old  peer  who  sat  beside  him  had  said  to 
himself,  watching  his  kindling  eyes  and  his  breathless  lips, 
and  knowing,  like  a  world-wise  old  man  of  business  as  he  was, 
that  the  fate  of  Prometheus  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  and  that 
it  is  mediocrity  which  pays. 

The  boy  had  a  singular  beauty;  it  had  been  a  characteristic 
of  the  great  minister's  race  through  all  centuries;  woman's 
tenderness  and  fashionable  fancies  were  shown  in  the  elegance 
of  his  dress,  with  its  velvets  and  laces  and  delicate  hues;  and 
the  gold  of  his  hair,  falling  over  his  shoulders  in  long,  clus- 
tering curls,  glittered  in  the  lamp-light  as,  at  his  father's  recog- 
nition of  the  crowd,  he  lifted  his  cap  with  its  eagle's  feather 
and  bowed  to  them  too — a  child's  bright,  gratified  amusement 
blended  with  the  proud,  courtly  grace  of  his  father's  manner, 
already  hereditary  in  him. 

The  hearts  of  the  people  warmed  to  him  for  his  beauty  and 
for  his  childhood,  the  hearts  of  the  women  especially,  and  they 
gave  him  another  and  yet  heartier  cheer.  He  bowed  like  a 
young  prince,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  and  looked  up  in 
the  grave  statesman's  face  with  a  happy,  joyous  laugh;  yet 
still  in  his  eyes,  as  they  glanced  over  the  throngs,  there  was 
the  look — dreamy,  brilliant,  half  wistful,  half  eager — which 
was  beyond  his  age,  and  which  had  made  the  old  peer  fear  for 
him  that  gift  of  the  gods  which  the  world  does  not  love,  be- 
cause— most  unwisely,  most  suicidally — it  fears  it. 

Amongst  the  crowd,  wedged  in  with  the  thousands  pressing 
there  about  the  carriages  waiting  for  the  members,  stood  a 
woman:  she  was  in  mourning-clothes,  that  hung  somberly  and 
heavily  about  her,  and  a  dark  veil  obscured  her  features.  By 
something  in  her  attitude,  something  in  her  form,  it  would 
have  been  guessed  that  she  had  been  handsome,  not  very  long 


8  CHAXPOS. 

since,  either,  but  that  now  there  was  more  iu  lier  that  was 
harsh,  and  perhaps  coarse,  than  there  was  of  any  other  trait. 
Her  features  could  not  be  seen,  her  eyes  alone  shone  through 
the  folds  of  her  veil,  and  were  fixed  on  the  famous  politician  as 
he  came  out  from  the  entrance  of  the  Commons,  and  on  the 
young  bo}'  by  his  side.  Her  own  hand  was  on  the  shonlder  of 
a  child  but  a  few  years  older,  very  strongly  built,  short,  and 
muscularly  made,  with  features  of  a  thoroughly  English  type 
— that  which  is  vulgarly  called  the  Saxon;  his  skin  was  very 
tanned,  his  linen  torn  and  nntidy,  his  hands  brown  as  berries 
and  broad  as  a  young  lion's  paws,  and  his  eyes,  blue,  keen, 
with  an  infinite  mass  of  humor  in  them,  looked  steadily  out 
from  under  the  straw  hat  drawn  over  them;  they  too  were 
fastened  on  the  bright  hair  and  the  delicate  di'ess  of  the  little 
aristocrat  with  some  such  look  as,  when  a  child,  Manon 
Phlippon  gave  the  gay  and  glittering  groups  of  Versailles  and 
the  young  queen  whom  she  lived  to  drag  to  the  scaffold. 

The  woman's  hand  weighed  more  heavily  on  his  shoulder, 
and  she  stooped  her  head  till  her  lips  touched  his  cheek,  with 
a  hoarse  whisper — 

"  There  is  your  enemy!" 

The  boy  nodded  silently,  and  a  look  passed  over  his  face, 
over  the  sturdy  defiance  of  his  mouth  and  the  honest  mischief 
of  his  eyes,  very  bitter,  very  merciless — worse  in  one  so  young 
than  the  fiercest  outburst  of  evanescent  rage. 

Life  was  but  just  oj)ening  in  him;  but  already  he  had 
learned  man's  first  instinct — to  hate. 

Where  they  stood,  on  the  edge  of  the  pressing  throng,  that 
had  left  but  a  narrow  lane  for  the  passage  of  the  ministers, 
the  little  patrician  was  close  to  the  boy  who  stared  at  him 
with  so  dogged  a  jealousy  and  detestation  in  his  glance;  and 
his  own  large  eyes,  with  a  wondering  surprise  in  their  brill- 
iance, rested  a  moment  on  the  only  face  that,  in  a  world  to 
him  of  luxury  and  love,  had  ever  looked  darkly  on  him.  He 
paused,  the  naturally  generous  and  tender  temper  in  him 
leading  him,  unconsciously,  rather  to  pity  and  to  reconciliation 
than  to  offense:  he  had  never  seen  this  stranger  before,  but 
his  instinct  was  to  woo  him  out  of  his  angry  solitude.  He 
touched  him,  with  a  bright  and  loving  smile,  giving  what  he 
had  to  give. 

"  You  look  vexed  and  tired:  take  these!'' 

He  put  into  his  hand  a  packet  of  French  bonbons  that  he 
had  been  given  in  the  Ladies'  Gallery,  and  follon'ed  his  father, 
with  a  glad,  rapid  bound,  into  the  carriage,  by  whose  steps 
fchey  were.     The  servants  shut   the  door   with 'a  clash,  the 


CHANDOS.  9 

wheels  rolled  away  with  a  loud  clatter,  swelling  the  thunder  of 
the  busy  midnight  streets.  The  boy  in  the  throng  stood  silent, 
looking  at  the  dainty,  costly,  enameled  Paris  packet  of  crys- 
tallized sweetmeats  and  fruits.  Then,  without  a  word,  he 
flung  it  savagely  on  the  ground,  and  stamped  it  out  under  his 
heel,  making  the  painted,  silvered  paper,  and  the  luscious  bon- 
bons, a  battered,  tramj^led  mass,  down  in  the  mud  of  the 
pavement. 

There  was  a  world  of  eloquence  in  the  gesture.  Rich  bon- 
bons rarely  touched  his  lips,  and  he  was  child  enough  to  love 
them  well;  but  he  threw  them  out  on  the  trottoir  now,  as 
though  they  had  been  so  much  sand. 

As  his  carriage  rolled  through  the  streets  in  the  late  night, 
the  great  statesman  passed  his  hand  lightly  over  the  fair  locks 
of  his  son.  Tlie  child  had  much  of  his  own  nature,  of  his  own 
intellect,  and  he  saw  in  his  young  heir  the  future  security  for 
the  continuance  of  the  brilliance  and  power  of  his  race.. 

*'  You  will  make  the  nation  honor  you  for  yourself  one  day, 
Ernest?' '  he  said,  gently,  as  his  hand  lay  on  the  soft,  glitter- 
ing hair. 

There  were  tears  in  the  child's  eyes,  and  a  brave  and  noble 
promise  and  comprehension  in  his  face,  as  he  looked  up  at  his 
father. 

"If  I  live  I  will!" 

As  they  were  propelled  onward  by  the  pressure  of  the  mov- 
ing crowd,  the  woman  and  her  son  went  slowly  along  the 
heated  streets,  with  the  gas-glare  of  some  fish  or  meat  shop 
thrown  on  them,  as  they  passed,  in  yellow,  flaring  illumina- 
tion. They  were  not  poor,  though  on  foot  thus,  and  though 
the  lad's  dress  was  torn  and  soiled  through  his  own  inveterate 
activity  and  endless  mischief.  No  pressure  of  any  want  was 
on  them:  yet  his  glance  followed  the  carriages,  darted  under 
the  awnings  before  the  mansions,  and  penetrated  wherever 
riches  or  rank  struck  him,  with  the  hungry,  impatient,  long- 
ing look  of  a  starving  Eousseau  or  Gilbert,  hounded  to  social- 
ism for  lack  of  a  sou — a  look  very  strange  and  premature  on  a 
face  so  young  and  naturally  so  mirthful  and  good-humored. 

His  mother  watched  him,  and  leaned  her  hand  again  on  his 
shoulder. 

"  You  will  have  your  revenge  one  day." 
"  Wo7i't  I!" 

The  school-boy  answer  was  ground  out  with  a  meaning  in« 
tensity,  as  he  set  his  teeth  like  a  young  bulldog. 

Each  had  promised  to  gain  a  very  difi'erent  aristcia.  When 
they  came  to  the  combat,  with  whom  would  rest  the  victory? 


10  CHAKDOS. 


BOOK  THE  FIRST. 

To  tocare  cantando 

El  musico  instrumento  sonoroso, 
Tu  el  gloria  gozando 

Danza,  y  festeja  -k  Dios  que  es  poderoso, 
O  gozemos  de  e.sta  gloria 
Por  que  la  liumana  es  transitoria! 

Ode  of  the  Flower.     IxTiLxocHiTL, 

Plutus,  the  god  of  gold, 

Is  but  his  steward 

no  gift  to  him 

But  breeds  the  giver  a  return  exceeding 
All  use  of  quittance. 

Shakespeare. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PYTHIAS,   OE  MEPHISTOPHELES  ? 

It  was  the  height  of  the  London  season.  Town  filled. 
Death  had  made  gaps  in  the  crowd;  but  new-comers  filled  up 
the  rents,  and  the  lost  were  unmissed.  Brows,  that  the  last 
year  had  been  stainless  as  snow,  had  been  smirched  with  slan- 
der or  stained  with  shame;  but  the  opals  crowning  them  belied 
their  ancient  fame,  and  did  not  pale.  Light  hearts  had  grown 
heavy,  proud  heads  had  been  bent,  fair  cheeks  had  learned  to 
cover  care  with  joearl-powder,  words  had  been  spoken  that  a 
lifetime  could  not  recall,  links  had  been  broken  that  an 
eternity  would  not  unite,  seeds  of  sin  and  sorrow  had  been 
sown  never  again  to  be  uprooted,  in  the  brief  months  that  lay 
between  "  last  season  "  and  this  phoenix  of  the  new;  but  the 
fashionable  world  met  again  with  smiling  lips,  and  bland  com- 
plaisance, and  unutterable  ennui,  and  charming  mutual  com- 
pliment, to  go  through  all  the  old  routine  with  well-trained 
faces,  befitting  the  arena. 

It  was  April.  The  last  carriages  had  rolled  out  by  the 
Corner,  the  last  hacks  paced  out  of  the  Ride,  the  last  sunlight 
was  fading;  epicures  were  reflecting  on  their  club  dinners, 
beauties  were  studying  the  contents  of  their  jewel-boxes,  the 
one  enjoying  a  matelote,  the  other  a  conquest,  in  dreamy  an- 
ticipation; chandeliers  were  being  lit  for  political  receptions. 


C&AND08.  H 

where  it  would  be  a  three-hours  campaign  to  crush  up  the 
stairs;  and  members  waiting  to  go  in  on  Supply  were  improv- 
ing their  minds  by  discussing  a  new  dancer's  ankles,  and  the 
extraordinary  scratching  of  Lord  of  the  Isles  for  the  Guineas. 
The  West,  in  a  word,  was  beginning  its  Business,  which  is 
Pleasure;  while  the  East  laid  aside  its  Pleasure,  which  is  Busi- 
ness; and  it  was  near  eight  o^ clock  on  a  s|)ring  night  in  Lon- 
don. 

Half  a  hundred  entertainments  waited  for  his  selection;  all 
the  loveliest  women,  of  mondes  proper  and  improper,  were 
calculating  their  chances  of  securing  his  preference;  every  sort 
of  intellectual  or  material  pleasure  waited  for  him  as  iitterl}"- 
as  they  ever  waited  for  Sulla  when  the  rose- wreaths  were  on 
his  hair  and  Quiutius  Roscius  ready  with  his  ripest  wit;  and 
for  him,  as  truly  as  for  Sulla,  ''  Felix  "  might  have  described 
him  as  the  darling  of  the  gods:  yet,  alone  in  his  house  in  Park 
Lane,  a  man  lay  in  idleness  and  ease,  indolently  smoking  a 
nargbile  from  a  great  silver  basin  of  rose-water.    A  stray  sun- 
beam lingered  here  and  there  on  some  delicate  bit  of  statuary, 
or  jeweled  tazze,   or  Cellini    cup,   in   a   chamber   luxurious 
enough  for  an  imperial  bride's,  with  its  hangings  of  violet  vel- 
vet, its  ceiling  painted  after  Greuze,  its  walls  hung  with  rich 
old  masters  and  petits  maitres,  and  its  niches  screening  some 
group  of  Coysevox,  Coustou,  or  Canova.     It  was,  however, 
only  the  *'  study, ^'  the  pet  retreat  of  its  owner,  a  collector  and 
a  connoisseur,  who  lay  now  on  his  sofa,  near  a  table  strewn 
with    Elzevirs,    Paris    novels,    MSS.,    croquis,    before    letter 
proofs,  and  dainty  female  notes.     The  fading  sunlight  fell 
across  his  face  as  his  head  rested  on  his  left  arm.     A  painter 
would  have  drawn  him  as  Alcibiades,  or,  more  poetically  still, 
would  have  idealized  him  into  the  Phoebus  of  Lykegenes,  the 
Light-born,  the  Sun-god,  of  Hellas,  so  singularly  great  was  his 
personal  beauty.     A  physiognomist  would  have  said,  "Here 
is  a  voluptuary,  here  is  a  profound  thinker,  here  is  a  poet, 
here  is  one  who  may  be  a  leader  and  chief  among  men  if  he 
will,*'  but  would  have  added,  "  Here  is  one  who  may,  fifty  to 
one,  sink  too  softly  into  his  bed  of  rose-leaves  ever  to  care  to 
rise  in  full  strength  out  of  it."     Artists  were  chiefly  attracted 
by  the  jiower,  men  by  the  brilliance,  and  women  by  the  gen- 
tleness,  of   this   dazzling   beauty:    for   the   latter,  indeed,  a 
subtler  spell  yet  hiy  in  the  deep-blue,  poetic,  eloquent  eyes, 
which  ever  gave  such  tender  homage,  such  dangerous  prayer, 
to  their  own  loveliness.     The  brow  was  magnificent,  meditat- 
ive enough  for  Plato's;  the  rich  and  gold-hued  hair,  bright  as 
any  Helen's;  the  gaze  of  the  eyes  in  rest,  thoughtful  as  might 


12  CHANDOS. 

be  that  of  a  Marcus  Aiirelius;  the  mouth,  iusouciant  and  epi 
cureau  as  the  h'ps  of  a  Catullus.  The  coutradictions  iii  the 
features  were  the  anomalies  in  the  character.  For  the  rest, 
his  stature  was  much  above  the  ordinary  height;  his  attitude 
showed  both  tlie  strength  and  grace  of  his  limbs;  his  age  was 
a  year  or  so  over  thirty,  and  his  reverie  now  was  of  the  light- 
est and  laziest:  he  had  not  a  single  care  on  him. 

There  was  a  double  door  to  his  room;  he  was  never  dis- 
turbed there,  either  by  servants  or  friends,  on  any  sort  of  pre-= 
text;  his  house  was  as  free  to  all  as  a  caravansary,  but  to 
this  chamber  only  all  the  world  was  interdicted.  Yet  the  lirst 
handle  turned,'  the  second  turned,  the  portiere  was  tossed 
aside  with  a  jerii:,  and  the  audacious  new-comer  entered.  A 
gallant  retriever  lying  by  the  couch  showed  fight  and  growled. 
Yet  the  guest  was  one  he  saw  every  day,  almost  every  hour — 
the  ami  de  la  maison,  the  master  comptroller  of  the  household. 

"  My  dear  ErnestI  you  alone  at  this  time  of  the  day? 
What  a  miracle!  I  have  actually  dared  to  invade  your  sanc- 
tum, your  holy  of  holies;  deuced  jjleasant  jjlace,  too.  What 
is  it  you  do  here.'  Paint  your  prettiest  picture,  chip  your 
prettiest  statuette,  make  love  to  your  prettiest  mistress,  write 
your  novels,  study  occult  sciences,  meditate  on  the  dialectics, 
seek  the  philosopher's  stone,  search  for  the  Venetian  color- 
secret,  have  supi^ers  a  la  Regence  to  which  you  deny  even  your 
bosom  friends?  or  what  is  it?  On  my  honor,  I  am  very  curi- 
ous!'* 

"Tell  me  some  news,  Trevenna,"'  said  his  host,  with  an 
amused  smile,  in  a  voice  low,  clear,  lingering  and  melodious 
as  music,  contrasting  forcibly  with  the  sharp,  ringing,  metallic 
tones  of  his  visitor.  "  How  came  you  to  come  in  here?  You 
know — " 

"  I  know;  but  I  had  curiosity  and  a  good  opportunity: 
what  mortal,  or  what  mortals,  ever  resisted  such  a  combina- 
tion? I  am  weaker  than  a  woman.  No  principle,  not  a 
shred.  Am  I  responsible  for  that?  No;  organization  and 
education.     How  dark  you  are  here!     May  I  ring  for  lights?" 

"Do  you  want  hght  to  talk  by?"  laughed  his  friend, 
stretching  his  hand  to  a  bell-handle.  "  Your  tongue  gener- 
ally runs  on  oiled  wheels,  Trevenna. " 

"  Of  course  it  does.  It's  my  trade  to  talk;  I  rattle  my 
tongue  as  a  nigger  singer  rattles  his  bones;  I  must  chat  as  an 
organ-grinder  grinds.  I'm  asked  out  to  dine  to  talk.  If  I 
grew  a  bore,  every  creature  would  drop  me;  and  if  I  grew  too 
dull  to  get  up  a  scandal,  I  should  be  very  sure  never  to  get  a 
dinner.     My  tongue's  my  merchandisa'" 


OHANDOS.  13 

With  which  statement  of  his  social  status,  John  Trevenna 
jerked  himself  out  of  his  chair,  and,  while  the  groom  of  the 
chamber  lighted  the  chandelier,  strolled  round  the  apartment. 
He  was  a  man  of  six-  or  eight-and-thirty,  short,  a  little  stout, 
but  wonderfully  supjile,  quick,  and  agile,  a  master  of  all  the 
science  of  the  gymnasium;  his  face  was  plain  and  irregular  in 
feature,  but  bright,  frank,  full  of  good  humor  almost  to 
joviality,  and  of  keen,  alert,  cultured  intelligence,  prepossess- 
ing through  its  blunt  and  honest  candor,  its  merry  smile 
showing  the  strong  white  teeth,  its  bonhomie,  and  its  look  of 
acute  indomitable  cleverness — a  cleverness  which  is  no  more 
genuis  than  an  English  farce  is  wit,  but  which,  sharper  than 
intellect  alone,  more  audacious  than  talent  alone,  will  trick  the 
world,  and  throw  its  foes,  and  thrive  in  all  it  does,  while 
genuis  gets  stoned  or  starves.  He  loitered  round  the  room, 
with  his  eyeglass  up,  glancing  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  as 
though  he  were  an  embryo  auctioneer,  and  stopped  at  last  be- 
fore a  Daphne  flying  from  Apollo  and  just  caught  by  him, 
shrouded  in  rose-colored  curtains. 

"  Nice  little  girl,  this?  Rather  enticing;  made  her  look 
alive  with  that  rose-light;  tantalizing  to  know  it's  nothing  but 
marble;  sweetly  pretty,  certainly.'' 

"  Sweetly  pretty?  Good  heavens,  my  dear  fellow,  hold 
your  tongue!  One  would  think  you  a  cockney  adoring  the 
moon,  or  a  lady's-maid  a  new  fashion.  That  Daphne's  the 
most  perfect  thing  Coustou  ever  did. " 

"  Don't  know  anything  about  them!  Never  see  a  bit  of 
difference  in  them  from  the  plaster  casts  you  buy  for  a  shil- 
ling. Won't  break  quite  so  soon,  to  be  sure.  She  is  pretty — 
nice  and  round,  and  all  that;  but  I  don't  care  a  straw  about 
art.     Never  could." 

"  And  you  are  proud  of  your  paganism?  Well,  you  are  not 
the  first  person  who  has  boasted  of  his  heresy  for  the  sheer 
sake  of  appearing  singular. " 

"  To  be  sure!  I  understand  Wilkes:  let  me  be  the  ugliest 
man  in  Europe,  rather  than  remain  in  mediocrity  among  the 
medium  plain  faces.  There's  not  a  hair's  difl:erence  between 
notoriety  and  fame.  Be  celebrated  for  something,  and,  if  you 
can't  jump  into  a  pit  like  Curtius,  pop  yourself  into  a  volcano 
like  Empedocles:  the  foolery's  immortalized  just  as  well  as  a 
heroism;  the  world  talks  of  you,  that's  all  you  want.  If  I 
couldn't  be  Alexander,  I'd  be  Diogenes;  if  I  weren't  a  great 
hero,  I'd  be  a  most  ingenious  murderer.  There's  no  radical 
difference  between  the  two!  But,  I  say,  do  you  ever  remem- 
ber what  a  fearful  amount  you  throw  away  on  these  dolly 


14  CHAKDOS. 

things?"  pursued  Trevenna,  interrupting  himsalf  to  strike  his 
cane  on  the  Daphne. 

"  The  onl}'  things  worth  the  money  I  spend!  My  dear  Tre- 
venna,  I  thank  you  much  for  your  interest,  but  I  can  dispense 
with  your  counsels." 

The  answer  was  very  gentle,  but  there  was  the  slight  languor 
of  hauteur  natural  to  a  man  accustomed  to  deference. 

Trevenna  laughed  good-temperedly;  he  had  never  been  seen 
out  of  humor. 

"Pardon!  I'm  a  brusque  fellow,  and  say  what  comeo 
uppermost;  wiser  if  I  kept  it  sometimes.  If  you  do  live  en 
prince,  who  wouldn't  that  could?  I  don't  believe  in  renuncia- 
tion. He  is  a  shrewd  fellow  who,  forced  on  abstinence,  vows 
he  likes  it  and  says  he  does  it  for  digestion;  but  I  love  the 
good  things  of  life  and  say  so,  though  I  can't  afford  them.  I 
should  sell  my  soul  for  turtle  soul!  By  the  way,  monseigneur, 
before  we  eat  your  soup  there's  a  little  business — " 

"  Business?  In  the  evening!  Do  you  wish  to  give  me  dys- 
pepsia before  dinner?" 

"  No;  but  I  want  to  digest  mine  by  feeling  I've  done  my 
dutj'.  There's  something  we  want  you  to  sign;  Legrew  does, 
at  the  least — " 

*'  On  my  honor,  Trevenna,"  cried  his  host,  with  a  gay,  care- 
less laugh,  "  you  are  abominable!  How  often  have  I  told  you 
that  I  trust  you  implicitly — you  are  fit  for  chancellor  of  the 
exchequer — and  that  I  never  will  be  worried  by  any  nonsense 
of  the  kind?" 

"  But,  caro  mio,"  pleaded  Trevenna,  coaxingly,  "  we  can't 
do  without  your  signature.  What's  to  be  done?  We  can't 
give  leases,  and  draw  checks,  and  get  bonds  and  mortgages, 
without  your  handwriting." 

The  last  words  caught  the  indolent  listener's  inattentive 
ear.     He  looked  up  surprised. 

"  Bonds?  Mortgages?  What  can  I  possibly  have  to  do 
with  them?" 

"  Moneys  are  lent  out  on  mortgages;  I  only  used  the  word 
as  example,"  explained  his  prime  minister,  a  little  rapidly. 
"  We  trouble  you  as  little  as  we  can;  only  want  your  name 
now.  Remember,  the  Guineas  let  you  in  heavily  this  time; 
one  can't  transfer  those  large  simis  without  your  authoriza- 
tion.    Just  let  me  read  you  over  this  paper:  it's  merely — " 

"  Spare  me!  spare  me!"  cried  the  lord  of  this  dainty  art- 
palace,  to  whom  the  ominous  crackle  of  the  parchment  was 
worse  than  the  singing  of  a  rattlesnake.     "  Smindyrides  felt 


CHANDOS.  15 

tired  if  ho  saw  a  man  at  work  in  the  fields:  what  would  ha 
have  felt  if  he  had  seen  a  modern  law  document?" 

"  Just  sign,  and  you  won't  see  it  any  more/'  pleaded  Tre- 
venna,  who  knew  the  facile  points  of  a  character  he  had  long 
made  his  special  study,  and  knew  that,  to  be  saved  further  ex- 
postulation, his  chief  would  comply. 

He  did  so,  raising  himself  with  a  slow,  graceful  indolence 
from  his  cushions,  and  resigning  the  mouth-piece  of  his  hookah 
reluctantly.  The  acquiescence  was  very  weak,  very  pliant, 
yielding  to  softness.  Yet  a  physiognomist  would  have  said 
that,  with  the  powerful  arch  of  the  brows  and  the  Julian  mold 
of  the  chin,  weakness  could  not  naturally  belong  to  this  man's 
disposition,  if  too  consummate  a  fastidiousness  and  too  abso- 
lute a  love  of  pleasure  were  inherent  in  it.  The  compliance 
was  most  insouciant,  the  willingness  to  sign,  in  ignorance  of 
what  he  signed,  a  trustful  carelessness  that  was  almost  wom- 
anish. But  life  had  fostered  this  side  of  his  character,  and 
had  done  nothing  to  counteract  it. 

"Stay!  you  haven't  heard  what  it  is,'' put  in  Trevenna, 
while  he  rattled  off,  with  clear,  quick  precision  that  showed 
him  a  master  of  precis  and  would  have  qualified  him  to  ex- 
plain a  budget  in  St.  Stephen's,  a  resume  of  what  he  stated 
the  contents  of  the  document  to  be;  a  very  harmless  document, 
according  to  him,  merely  reverting  to  the  management  of  the 
immense  properties  of  which  his  friend  was  the  possessor.  His 
hearer  idly  listened  two  minutes,  then  let  his  thoughts  drift 
away  to  the  chiaro-oscuro  of  a  Ghirlandajo  opposite,  and  to 
speculation  whether  lieyuolds  was  quite  correct  in  his  estimate 
of  the  invariable  amount  of  shadow  employed  by  the  old  mas- 
ters. 

Trevenna's  exposition,  lucid,  brief,  and  as  little  tiresome  as 
legalities  can  be  made,  ended,  he  took  the  pen  without  more 
opposition  or  reflection,  and  dashed  his  name  down  in  bold; 
clear  letters — 

"  Eenest  Chaxdos.  " 

Trevenna  watched  him  as  he  wrote — watched  as  though 
they  were  all  seen  for  the  first  time,  the  delicate  firmness  of 
the  writing — a  firmness  so  singularly  at  variance  with  the  plia- 
bility with  which  persuasion  had  vanquished  him  without  a 
blow — the  hand  which  traced  them,  white,  long,  elegant  as  a 
woman's,  and  the  single  rose-diamond  which  fastened  the 
wristband  of  the  arm  that  luy  idly  resting  on  the  table.  Rings 
there  were  none  on  either  hand.  Chandos,  the  leader  of  fash- 
ion, had  banished  them  as  relics  of  barbarism. 


16  CHANDOS. 

He  pushed  the  paper  to  Trevenna  with  the  ink  still  wet  on 
the  signature.  "  Tliere!  and  remember  henceforward,  my 
very  good  fellow,  never  to  trouble  me  with  all  this  nonsense 
again.  I  might  as  well  manage  my  own  affairs  from  first  to 
last,  if  my  men  of  business  must  come  to  me  about  every 
trifle.  I  would  not  trust  the  lawyers  without  looking  after 
them  (though  if  a  lawyer  means  to  cheat  you  he  icill,  let  you 
have  as  many  eyes  as  Argus);  but  with  you  to  give  them  a 
check  they  can't  go  wrong.  By  the  way,  Trevenna,  were  you 
not  touched  on  the  Heath  yourself?" 

"  Well,  Lord  of  the  Isles  let  us  all  in,  more  or  less,"  said 
Trevenna,  crumpling:  up  his  papers;  "  but,  you  know,  poor 
hedgers  like  me  can't  ever  risk  more  than  a  tenner  or  so." 

"  Still,  your  inimitable  book-making  failed  you  at  the 
Guineas?  I  was  afraid  so.  Draw  on  me  as  you  need:  you 
have  blank  checks  of  mine;  fill  one  up  as  you  like." 

"  No,  no!  oh,  hang  it,  monseigneur!  You  put  one  out  of 
countenance. '^ 

"  Impossible  miracle,  Trevenna!*'  laughed  Chandos,  look- 
ing on  him  with  kindly  eyes.  "How  can  any  little  matter 
like  that  ever  repay  all  the  time  and  talent  you  are  good 
enough  to  waste  in  my  service?  Besides,  between  old  frienda 
there  is  never  a  question  of  obligation.  Nine  o'clock?  We 
must  go  to  dinner,  I  promised  Claire  Rahel  not  to  miss  her 
supper.  She  is  enchanting!  She  has  the  so?<nVe  f/e /a  Regcnce 
and  the  wit  of  Sophie  Arnauld. " 

"And  the  smiles  cost  you  an  India  of  diamonds,  and  tho 
wit  is  paid  a  cashmere  each  mot!  If  Monde  deigned  to  recog- 
nize Demi-Monde,  how  would  the  countess  admire  being  out- 
rivaled by  the  actress?" 

"  The  countess  is  like  Crispin,  rivale  de  soi-meme  alone. 
All  pretty  women  and  all  dull  men  are  vain!  The  belles  and 
tlie  bores  always  worship  at  their  own  shrines,"  laughed 
Chandos,  as  his  groom  of  the  chambers  announced  the  arrival 
in  the  drawing-rooms  of  other  guests  from  the  Guards,  and 
the  Legations,  to  one  of  those  "little  dinners"  which  were 
the  most  coveted  and  exclusive  entertainments  in  London. 

"  We  must  go,  I  suppose;  Prince  Charles  might  wait,  but 
the  turbot  must  not,"  he  said,  with  a  yawn — he  was  accus- 
tomed to  have  the  world  wait  on  and  wait  for  him — as  he  held 
back  the  portiere,  and  signed  to  John  Trevenna  to  pass  out 
before  him,  down  the  lighted  corridor,  with  its  exotics,  statues, 
and  bronzes  glancing  under  the  radiance  from  the  candelabra. 
Ue  would  have  kept  a  serene  highness  attending  his  pleasure; 
but  he  gave  the  pas  with  as  much  courtesy  as  to  a  monarch 


CHANDOS.  17 

to  thafc  very  needy  man-about-town,  his  dependent,  hanger- 
on,  undjichis  Achates,  John  Trevenna. 

"  What  a  clever  fellow  he  is!  I  must  bring  him  into  the 
House;  his  talents  would  tell  well  there:  they  are  frittered 
away  in  club-windows/'  he  thought,  as  he  went  down  the 
corridors  to  his  reception-rooms.  To  ask  whether  this  fidus 
Achates  were  a  Pythias  or  a  Mephistopheles  would  have  been 
a  doubt  that  could  never  have  crossed  either  the  chivalry  o\ 
the  friendship  of  Chandos. 

He  would  have  thought  such  a  question,  even  in  thought.,, 
a  blot  on  good  faith,  a  treachery  to  the  bond  of  bread  and  salv- 
His  trust  in  Trevenna  was  as  great  as  his  services  to  him  kitU 
been.  If  the  world,  that  now  idolized,  had  turned  and  cruci- 
fied him,  he  would  have  been  secure  that  this  man  wouW  uever 
have  denied  him. 

And,  thinking  how  he  could  serve  his  friend  further  Chan- 
dos went  down  to  his  dinner — to  courses  prepared  by  u  cordon 
bleu;  to  wines  of  comet  years  and  imperial  growth;  t(„  wit  that 
was  planned  to  please  him  as  utterly  as  ever  jestera  strove  to 
amuse  their  king;  and,  later  on,  to  women's  beauty,  and  the 
charms  of  softest  pleasui'e,  and  the  glitter  of  every  revelry 
that  could  beguile  the  senses  and  enchant  away  die  hours  of 
a  man  who,  brilliant  as  a  Guise,  lavish  as  a  Bolingoroke,  splen- 
did as  a  Buckingham,  was  sought  in  proportion  to  his  fashion 
and  his  fame,  the  world  turning  after  him  liiie  heliotropes 
after  the  sun. 


CHAPTER  n. 

"  LA  COMETE   ET   SA    QUEUE.' 

"  Did  you  see  Chandos's  trap  in  the  ring  to-day?  Four* 
in-hand  grays,  set  of  outriders,  cream-and-stilver  liveries — 
prettiest  thing  ever  seen  in  the  park,'*  said  Winters  of  the 
First  Guards. 

"  Chandos  has  given  six  thousand  for  Wuld  Geranium- 
best  bit  of  blood  out  of  Danesbury;  safe  to  wih  at  the  Ducal, '^ 
said  the  Marquis  of  Bawood. 

"  Chandos  has  bought  the  Titians  at  the  pac  de  Vallere's 
sale;  the  nation  ought  to  have  bidden  foi  them,"  said  the 
Earl  of  Rougemont. 

"Nation's  much  better  off;  he's  given  them  to  the  country," 
Baid  S  ten  tor,  a  very  great  art-critic. 

"You  don't  mean  it?"  said  the  Du'Ke  of  ArgentiuG 
*'  That  man  would  give  his  head  away.*' 


18  CHA3SD0S. 

"  And  if  the  Cabinet  bid  for  it  they  might  keep  in  office," 
said  George  Lorn,  who  was  a  cynical  dandy. 

"  Flora  has  been  faithful  three  months:  Chandos  {5  a  sor- 
cerer!" yawned  Sir  Phipps  Lacy,  talking  of  a  beautiful  sover- 
eign of  the  equivocal  world. 

"  Chandos  has  a  bottomless  purse,  my  dear  Sir  Phipps: 
there's  the  key  to  Flora's  new  constancy,^'  said  John  Trevenna. 

"  You  have  read  '  Lucrece,'  of  course?  There  is  no  writer 
in  Europe  hke  Chandos — such  wit,  such  pathos,  such  power. 
I  had  the  early  sheets  before  it  was  published,"  said  the 
Duchess  of  Belamour,  proud  of  her  privilege. 

"  '  Lucrece  '  is  the  most  marvelous  thing  since  '  Pelham.'  " 

"  The  most  poetic  smce  Byron!" 

*'  Oh,  it  is  a  poem  ni  prose!" 

**  And  yet  such  exquisite  satire!" 

*'  Afred  de  Musset  never  probed  human  nature  so  deeply!" 

*'  Shelley  never  attained  more  perfect  art." 

*'  Certainly  not!  you  know  it  is  in  the  sixth  edition  already?" 

**  Of  course!  every  one  is  reading  it." 

So  the  talk  ran  round  at  a  garden-party  near  Pichmond, 
among  the  guests  of  a  Bourbon  j^rince,  and  for  once  the  prov- 
erb was  wrong,  and  the  absent  was  found  by  his  friends  in 
the  right,  with  a  universal  vote  of  adoration.  When  the  sun 
is  at  his  noon,  and  they  are  basking  in  his  light,  the  whole 
floral  world  turn  after  him  in  idolatry;  if  he  ever  set,  perhaps 
they  hang  their  heads,  and  hug  the  night-damp,  and  nod  to- 
gether in  condemnation  of  the  spots  that  dimmed  their  fallen 
god's  beauty;  they  have  never  spoken  of  them  before,  but 
they  have  all  seen  them;  and  then  the  judicious  flowers  will 
sigh  a  vote  of  censure. 

He  of  whom  the  world  chattered  now  was  the  darling  of 
Fortune;  his  sins  and  stains,  if  he  had  any,  were  buried  iti 
oblivion,  or  only  cited  tenderly,  almost  admiringly,  as  a  woman 

Euts  her  diamonds  on  black  velvet  that  their  brilUance  may 
e  enhanced  by  the  contrast.  It  must  be  granted,  too,  that 
all  the  sins  he  had  were  the  soft  sins;  but  let  him  have  done 
what  he  would,  his  world  would  have  christened  it  "  such  in- 
teresting eccentricity!"  For  to  women  he  was  the  most  hand- 
some man  of  his  day,  and  to  men  he  was  the  leader  of  fashion, 
and  the  donor  of  the  best  dinners  in  Europe.  Friendship  is 
never  sealed  so  firmly  as  with  the  green  wax  of  a  pure  claret, 
and  our  Patroclus  is  sacred  to  us  after  sharing  his  salt  and  his 
bread,  at  least  if  it  flavor  clear  soup  and  be  pain  a  he  mode  ; 
— black  broth  and  black  bread  might  not  have  such  sanctify* 
ing  properties. 


CHANDOS.  19 

"How  late  you  are!''  cried  the  Countess  de  la  Vivarol, 
making  room  for  him  beside  her  in  a  summer  concert-room, 
as  the  idol  of  the  hour  appeared  at  last  for  half  an  hour  in  the 
prince's  grounds.  Mme.  de  la  Vivarol  was  the  most  bewitch- 
ing of  Parisienues,  and  the  loveliest  of  court  beauties,  with  a 
form  as  exquisite  as  Pauline  Bonaparte's,  and  hazel  eyes  of 
the  divinest  mischief  and  languor.  A  fairer  thing  than  this 
fairest  of  fashionable  empresses  was  never  seen  atLongchamps 
on  a  great  race-day,  or  in  the  Salle  des  Marechaux  at  a  recep- 
tion; yet,  such  is  the  ingratitude  or  inconstancy  of  nature, 
Chandos  looked  less  at  her  than  at  a  strange  face  some  dis- 
tance from  him,  although  he  had  for  the  last  two  years  been 
no  more  rivaled  near  the  charming  countess  than  if  she  had 
worn  a  silver  label  or  a  silver  collar  round  her  neck  to  denote 
his  proprietorship,  hke  his  retriever  Beau  Sire,  or  his  pet  deer 
down  at  Clarencieux.  Madame  noted  the  lese-majeste:  she 
was  not  a  woman  to  forgive  it,  and  still  less  a  woman  to  com- 
plain of  it. 

"  They  are  talking  about  '  Lucrece,'  Ernest.  They  worship 
it,"  she  said,  dropping  her  lovely,  mellow,  laughing,  starhke 
eyes  on  him.  They  had  fallen  on  him  with  effect,  twenty 
months  before,  in  the  soft  moonlight  on  a  certain  balcony  at 
Compiegne. 

He  laughed.  He  cared  little  what  the  world  said  of  him; 
he  had  ruled  it  too  long  to  be  its  slave. 

"  Indeed!     And  do  they  read  it?" 

"  Yes.  They  do  read  you, "  laughed  madame,  too,  "  though 
they  would  swear  to  you  on  hearsay  just  so  warmly.  All  the 
world  idolizes  the  book." 

"  Ah!  1  would  prefer  half  a  dozen  who  could  criticise  it." 

"  Tais-toi.     How  ungrateful  you  are!" 

"  Because  my  head  does  not  get  turned?  That  was  Sulla's 
worst  crime  to  mankind.  They  say  '  Lucrece  '  is  a  master- 
piece because  it  is  in  its  fifth  edition,  and  they  expect  me  to 
be  intoxicated  with  such  discerning  applause,"  said  Chandos, 
with  his  melodious,  amused  la'ugh,  clear  and  gay  as  a  woman's. 
Fame  had  come  to  iiim  so  young,  he  had  gained  the  world's 
incense  with  so  little  effort,  that  he  held  both  in  a  certain 
nonchalant  mockery. 

"  To  be  sure!  when  men  go  mad  if  they  get  one  grain  of 
applause,  it  is  very  discourteous  in  you  to  keep  cool  when  you 
have  a  hundred.  What  a  reflection  it  is  upon  them! 
Where  are  you  looking,  Ernest?" 

"  Where  can  I  be  looking?"  he  said,  with  a  smile,  as  ho 
turned  his  eyes  full  upon  her.     It  would  not  have  done  to  con- 


20  CHANDOS. 

fess  to  the  countess  tlmt  he  was  scarcely  heeding  her  words  be- 
cause a  face  rare  to  him  had  caught  his  gaze  in  the  fashionably? 
crowd. 

Tiie  countess  gave  a  Httle  skeptical  meaning  arch  of  her 
delicate  eyebrows.  "  She  is  very  beautiful,  mon  ami,  but  her 
beauty  will  not  do  for  you/' 

"  Why?'' 

There  was  a  little  eagerness  in  the  tone,  and  an  unconscious 
self-betrayal  that  she  had  penetrated  his  thoughts. 

"  Because  the  passage  to  it  will  be  terrible,"  said  Madame 
de  la  Vivarol,  with  a  shiver  of  her  perfumed  laces.  Her  teeth 
were  set  in  rage  under  the  soft,  laughing,  rose-hued  lips,  but 
she  could  play  her  pretty,  careless  vaudeville  without  a  sign  of 
jealousy. 

"  Terrible!  you  pique  my  curiosity.  I  have  no  fondness, 
though,  for  tempests  in  my  love-affairs. 

"  'En  I'amour  si  rien  n'est  amer, 
Qu'on  est  sot  de  ne  pas  aimerl 
Si  tout  Test  au  degre  supreme, 
Quand  est  sotalors  que  I'on  aimel' 

Terrible,  too?     In  what  way?" 

"  Par  la  yorte  dii  mariage,"  said  La  Vivarol,  with  a  silvery 
laugh. 

Chandos  laughed  too,  as  he  leaned  over  her  chair. 

"  Terrible  indeed,  then.  It  were  too  much  to  pay  for  a 
Helen!  You  have  disenchanted  me  at  once:  so  tell  me  now 
who  she  is." 

"Not  I!  I  am  not  a  master  of  the  ceremonies."  There 
was  a  certain  dark,  angry  flash  under  the  curl  of  her  silky 
lashes  that  he  knew  very  welL 

"I  am  a  little  out  of  your  favor  to-day,  Heloise?"  said 
Chandos,  amusedly.  The  passing  storm  of  a  mistress's  jeal- 
ousy was  the  darkest  j)assage  his  cloudless  and  insouciant  life 
had  encountered.  "  I  know  my  crime:  I  was  not  at  your  re- 
ception last  night." 

"  Weren't  you?"  asked  La  Vivarol,  with  the  most  perfect 
air  of  indifferent  surprise.  "  I  could  not  tell  who  was  and 
who  was  not.     How  I  detest  your  English  crushes!" 

"Nevertheless,  that  was  my  siti,"  laughed  Chandos. 
*'  What  excuse  can  I  make?  If  I  tell  you  I  was  writing  a  son- 
net in  your  name,  you  would  tell  me  we  solace  ourselves  more 
materially  and  unfaithfully.  If  I  said  I  feared  my  thousand 
rivals,  you  would  not  be  likely  to  believe  that  any  the  more. 
There  is  nothing  for  it  but  the  truth." 

"  Well,  tell  it,  then." 


CHANDOS.  21 

"  Ma  belle,  the  truth  will  be  that  I  was  at  Alvariiia's  debut 
m  '  Eigoletto,'  and  supped  afterward  with  her  aud  Eahel. " 

"  Alvarina!  that  gauut,  browu  Eoniaii?  and  you  call  your- 
self fastidious,  Ernest?"  cried  Mme.  la  Comtesse. 

"  A  gaunt,  brown  Koman — Alvarinal  The  handsomest 
singer  that  ever  crossed  the  Alps!  So  much  for  feminine 
prejudice,'^  thought  Chandos;  but  he  knew  the  sex  too  well  to 
utter  his  thoughts  aloud,  or  he  would  not  have  been  forgiven 
so  bewitchingly  as  he  was,  while  he  lingered  to  listen  to  a 
cantata,  exchanged  words  with  a  hundred  different  people,  who 
vied  with  each  other  to  catch  a  syllable  from  the  leader  and 
darling  of  the  hour,  disentangled  himseK  from  Mme.  de  la 
Vivarol,  the  Duchess  of  Argentine,  and  a  score  of  titled  beau- 
ties, who  cared  for  no  other  at  their  side  as  they  cared  for  him, 
and  made  his  way  at  last  to  where  his  drag  stood  at  the  gates 
in  the  bright  light  of  a  May  evening  at  seven  o'clock. 

"  Pygmalion  was  nothing  to  you,  Chandos,"  said  Trevenna, 
swinging  himself  up  the  perch  of  the  drag  as  a  school-boy  up 
a  tree,  while  the  other  men  on  it  were  owners  of  some  of  the 
highest  coronets  in  Europe.  There  was  this  that  was  excel- 
lent and  manly  in  this  penniless  man-upon-town;  he  never 
truckled  to  rank;  peer  or  day-laborer  alike  heard  his  mind. 
"  He  init  heart  into  a'  statue;  you've  put  it  into  a  woman  of 
the  world — much  the  more  difficult  feat.  Madame  la  Comtesse 
is  positively  jealous.  I  do  believe  she  divines  we  are  going  to 
have  Demi-Monde  to  dinner!" 

Chandos  laughed  as  he  started  off  his  leaders — thorough-bred 
roans,  wild,  young,  and  fresh.  Those  fair,  delicate  hands  of 
his  could  hold  in  the  most  riotous  team. 

Not  she!  she  would  not  do  me  so  much  honor.  But  every 
woman  has  a  heart,  even  the  worst  woman — though,  to  be 
sure,  we  forget  it  sometimes,  till — we've  broken  them." 

"Broken  them?  Poetic  author  of  *Lucrece!'  Hearts 
never  break — except  as  a  good  stroke  of  business,  as  sculptors 
knock  a  limb  off  a  statue  to  make  believe  it's  an  antique. 
Every  Musette  we  neglect  vows  her  desertion  is  her  death, 
but  she  soon  sings  '  Resurgam  '  again," to  the  tune  of  the  Can- 
can at  the  opera-ball." 

"  So  much  the  happier  for  them,  for  we  give  them  no  De 
Prof  undis!  There  are  exceptions  to  the  Musette  rule,  though. 
I  remember — " 

"  Don't  trouble  yourself  with  remembrance,  Ernest.  She 
soon  supj^lied  your  place,  take  my  word  for  it." 

"  My  good  fellow,  no:  she  died." 

'*  Not  out  of  love  for  you!    She  had  aneurism,  or  disease  ot 


^^  CHAiq^DOs. 

the  heart,  or  sat  in  a  draught  and  caught  cold,  or  eat  too  many 
cherries  after  dinner!  There  was  a  substantial  basis  for  your 
picturesque  hj'pothesis,  I'll  wager." 

"Graceless  dog!  Have  you  never  had  a  doubled-down 
page  in  your  lifer"' 

"  I  don't  keep  a  diary;  not  even  a  mental  one!  Eeminis- 
cence  is  utterly  unpractical  and  unphilosophical:  agreeable,  ic 
dissatisfies  you  with  the  presenJ;;  disagreeable,  it  dissatisfies 
you  with  the  past.  I  say,  they  are  taking  five  to  three  on  your 
chestnut  at  the  Corner.  I  don't  see  what  can  beat  you  at 
Ascot.  There's  a  good  deal  whispered  about  Lotus  Lily:  she's 
kept  dark. " 

"  They  always  train  closely  at  Whitworth,  but  rarely  bring 
out  anything  good.  Sir  Galahad  beats  the  whole  Ascot  field 
for  pace,  and  blood,  and  jjower.  You  are  quite  safe,  Cban- 
dos,"  said  His  Grace  of  x\rdennes,  a  gay,  vivacious  young  fel- 
low, well  known  on  the  Turf,  however. 

"  Queen  of  the  Fairies  is  the  only  thing  that  could  have  a 
chance  with  Galahad,"  put  in  the  Due  de  Luilhieres:  "she 
has  good  breed  in  her  by  double  strains;  fine  shoulders — " 

"  Leggy!"  objected  Trevenna,  contemptuously,  flatly  con- 
tradicting a  peer  of  France.  "  Xot  well  ribbed-up;  weedy 
altogether.  Cbieftain  was  her  sire,  and  he  never  did  anything 
notable  except  to  break  a  blood-vessel  on  the  Beacon  Course. 
The  touts  know  what  they're  about,  and  they're  all  for  the 
Clarencieux  horse." 

"Galahad  will  win  if  he  be  allowed,"  said  Chandos.  "I 
wish  I  could  ride  him  myself;  he  would  walk  over  the  course. 
Ah!  there  is  Flora  on  the  balcony;  they  are  before  us." 

"  I  wish  they  weren't  here  at  all!"  cried  Trevenna.  "  You 
should  never  have  women  to  dinner;  they  shouldn't  come  till 
the  olives.  You  can't  appreciate  the  delicate  nuances  of  a 
flavor  if  you  are  obliged  to  turn  a  compliment  while  you're 
eating  it;  and  you  never  can  tell  whether  a  thing  is  done  to  a 
second,  if,  as  yon  discuss  it,  you  are  pondering  on  the  hand- 
some flesh-tints  of  a  living  picture  beside  you.  The  presence  of 
a  woman  disturbs  that  cool,  critical  ncumen,  that  serene,  divine 
beatitude,  that  should  attend  your  dinner." 

"  Blasphemer!"  cried  Chandos.  "  As  if  one  touch  of 
some  soft  lips  were  not  worth  all  Brillat-Savarin's  science; 
what  flavor  would  wine  have  if  woman's  eyes  didn't  laugh  over 
it?  You  King  of  Epicures!  you'd  adore  a  Yitellius,  I  believe, 
and  hang  Pausanias  for  his  Spartan  broth  the  day  after 
Myciile!" 

■'  Certainly.      A  man  who  could  capture  Xerxes's  cooks 


CHANDOS.  33 

and  not  dine  off  their  art  deserved  nothing  less  than  the  gal- 
lows; and  Vitelliiis  was  a  very  sensible  fellow;  when  he  knew 
he  must  die  he  took  care  to  finish  his  wine  first.  Hero  versus 
Gourmet.  Why  not?  Careme  benefited  France  much  more 
lastingly  than  Turenne;  and  Ude's  done  the  world  far  more 
good  than  Napoleon.  I'd  rather  have  been  the  man  who  first 
found  out  that  you  must  stuff  a  turkey  with  truffles  than  have 
won  Austerlitz,  any  day.  Your  hero  gets  misjudged,  black- 
guarded, whitewashed,  overrated,  underrated,  just  as  the 
fit's  hot  or  cold  to  bim;  but  the  man  who  once  invents  a  per- 
fect sauce  is  secure  for  all  eternity.  His  work  speaks  for 
itself,  and  its  judges  are  his  apostles,  who  never  name  him 
without  benediction.  Besides,  fancy  the  satisfaction,  to  a  cos- 
mopolitan, amiable  creature  like  myself,  of  knowing  I'd  pre- 
pared a  delight  for  generations  unborn!" 

"  Sublime  apotheosis  of  gastronomy!"  laughed  Chandos, 
as  he  threw  the  ribbons  to  his  groom  before  the  doors  of  a 
summer  villa  at  Eichmond  belonging  to  him,  wdiere  most  of 
these  Bohemian  dinners  and  suppers  a  hi  Fegcnce  were  given; 
a  charming  place,  half  covered  in  flowering  trees  and  pyra- 
mids of  May  blossom;  with  glimpses  of  wood  and  water  from 
its  windows,  and  with  the  daintiest  and  coziest  banqueting-room 
in  the  world,  hung  with  scarlet  silk,  drawn  back  here  and 
there  to  show  some  beautiful  female  picture  by  Titian,  Greuze, 
Eegnault,  or  La  Tour,  large  enough  to  hold  twenty  people, 
but  small  enough  to  feel  a  huis  clos  like  a  cabinet;  with  the 
air  scented  by  dreamy  incenses,  and  dishes  and  wines  under  the 
mellowed  light  that  would  have  entranced  even  Lucullus  had 
he  been  throned  there  on  his  ivory  chair.  Of  this  villa,  and 
this  banqueting-room,  rumor  ran  high,  accrediting  it  revelries 
as  wild  as  Medmenham  or  as  Bassy-Eabutin's  "Abbey"  of 
Eoissy.  They  who  told  most  precisely  what  positively  took 
place  there  were,  of  course,  always  those  who  had  never  been 
through  its  doors!  And  the  world  loved  to  take  their  stories 
with  spice,  and  whisjaer  unimaginable  naughtiness  of  thisjjleas- 
ant  loiihonniere  of  a  villa  buried  away  in  its  acacias  and 
guelder  roses  and  flowering  chestnuts,  where  laughter  rang  out 
on  to  the  young  summer  dawns,  and  beauty  in  neglige  out- 
shone all  the  jeweled  beauty  of  courts. 

"  The  art  of  life  is — to  enjoy!"  cried  Chandos,  that  night, 
lifting  up  to  crown  the  sentiment  a  dee]?  glass  of  glowing  red 
Eoussillon. 

"  Toast  worthy  of  Lucullus  and  Ovid!  and  you  are  a  mas- 
ter of  the  science,"  said  John  Trevenna,  who  was  perhaps  the 
only  one  who  saw  quite  clearly  through  that  intoxicating  at* 


24  cHA]!n)os. 

iiiospnere  of  pastilles,  and  jDerfumes,  and  wines,  and  crushed 
flowers,  and  bruised  fruits,  and  glancing  tresses,  and  languid 
eyes,  and  lips  fit  for  the  hymns  of  a  Catullus. 

"He  is  the  darling  of  the  gods!"  cried  Flora  de  FOrnie, 
that  magnificent  Arlesienne,  with  her  melting,  Greek-like 
glance,  aod  her  cheek  like  a  peach  in  the  sun,  while  she  leaned 
over  him  and  twisted,  Catullus-like,  in  the  bright  masses  of 
liis  long,  golden  hair,  a  wreath  of  crimson  roses  washed  in 
jDurple  Burgundy. 

Chandos  shook  the  wine  from  the  rose-crown  as  he  bent  and 
kissed  that  glowing  Southern  loveliness,  and  laughed  under 
his  diadem  of  flowers.  The  roses  themselves  were  not  brighter 
or  more  luxurious  than  the  hours  of  life  were  to  him. 

He  enjoyed!  Oh,  golden  sun  of  this  world's  sweet  content! 
Supreme  truth  of  Faust;  when  he  should 

"  — to  the  passing  moment  say, 
Stay!  thou  art  so  fair!" 

then  alone  the  philosopher  knew  that  he  could  claim  to  have 
tasted  happiness.  ^Then  once  we  look  back  or  look  forward, 
then  has  the  trail  of  the  serpent  been  over  our  Eden.  To  en- 
joy, we  must  live  in  the  instant  we  grasp. 

It  is  so  easy  for  the  preacher,  when  he  has  entered  the  days 
of  darkness,  to  tell  us  to  find  no  flavor  in  the  golden  fruit,  no 
music  in  the  song  of  the  charmer,  no  spell  in  eyes  that  look 
love,  no  delirium  on  the  soft  dreams  of  the  lotus — so  easy, 
when  these  things  are  dead  and  barren  for  himself,  to  say  they 
are  forbidden  I  But  men  must  be  far  more,  or  far  less,  than 
mortal  ere  they  can  blind  their  eyes  and  dull  their  senses  and 
forswear  their  natures  and  obey  the  dreariness  of  the  com- 
mandment; and  there  is  little  need  to  force  the  sackcloth  and 
the  serge  upon  us.  The  roses  wither  long  before  the  wassail 
is  over,  and  there  is  no  magic  that  will  make  them  bloom 
again,  for  there  is  none  that  renews  us — youth.  The  Helots 
had  their  one  short,  joyous  festival  in  their  long  year  of  labor; 
life  may  leave  us  ours.  It  will  be  surely  to  us,  long  before 
its  close,  a  harder  tyrant  and  a  more  remorseless  task-master 
than  ever  was  the  Lacedemonian  to  his  bond-slaves — bidding 
us  make  bricks  without  straw,  breaking  the  bowed  back,  and 
leaving  us  as  our  sole  chance  of  freedom  the  hour  when  we 
shall  turn  our  faces  to  the  wall — and  die. 

Once,  some  twenty  years  or  more  before,  down  at  the  stately 
pile  of  Clarencieus,  in  the  heart  of  the  Devon  woods,  where 
red  deer  couched,  and  the  black  eagle  soared  in  the  light  of 
Bummer  days  above  the  haughty,  ivy-mantled  towers,  Philip 


CHANDOS-  25 

Chandos,  the  great  minister,  had  paused  a  moment  where  his 
young  son  leaned  out  of  one  of  the  painted  oriel  casements  of 
the  library,  hanging  with  a  child's  faith  and  love  over  the 
eternal  story  of  Arthur.  The  boy's  arms  were  folded  on  the 
vellum  pages,  his  head  was  drooped  slightly  forward  in  dreamy 
thought,  and  on  his  face  came  the  look  that  there  is  in  the 
portrait  of  Milton  in  his  early  years. 

His  father  touched  him  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Where  are  your  thoughts,  Ernest?'* 

The  child  started  a  little. 

"  I  was  thinking  what  I  shall  be  when  I  am  a  man.*' 

"  Indeed?     And  what  will  you  be?*' 

"First,  Chandos  of  Clarencieux!" 

He  could  not  have  spoken  with  air  more  royal  if  he  had 
said,  "  Augustus  Imperator!" 

"  But  besides?" 

"  Besides?"  his  voice  fell  lower,  and  grew  swift  and 
warmer,  a  little  tremulous  in  its  enthusiasm.  "  Why,  I  will 
be  a  poet  and  a  statesman.  I  will  have  palaces  like  the  Ara- 
bian Nights,  and  gather  the  people  in  them  and  make  them 
happy.  I  will  defend  all  the  guiltless  and  protect  all  the 
weak,  like  King  Arthur.  I  will  rule  men  but  by  love,  not 
fear;  and  I  will  make  my  name  great — so  great  that  when  I 
die  they  will  only  write  '  Chandos  '  on  my  grave,  and  the  name 
will  tell  the  world  its  own  tale!" 

They  were  strange  words;  and,  where  he  leaned  against  the 
oriel,  the  light  from  the  setting  autumn  sun  fell  full  upon  his 
face,  deepening  there  the  lofty  and  spiritual  exaltation  of 
thoughts  too  far  above  his  years.  His  father  looked  at  him, 
and  something  that  was  almost  a  sigh  passed  the  haughty  lips 
of  the  great  minister.  The  sigh  was  for  the  future  of  those 
heroic  and  pure  ambitions,  for  the  world  which  would  break 
them  as  surely  as  the  pi-essure  of  the  iron  roller  crushes  out 
the  flowers  of  spring.  And  he  could  not  utter  to  the  child, 
in  the  jiroud  gladness  of  his  young  faith,  the  warning  that  rose 
to  his  own  lips:  "  Keep  those  dreams  for  other  worlds,  for 
they  will  never  find  fruition  here." 

Yet,  for  the  boy  to  whom  these  dreams  came,  untaught  and 
instinctive,  in  all  their  superb  impossibility,  their  divine  un- 
reality, his  fatlier  could  not  but  hope  himself  a  future  and  an 
ambition  still  loftier  than  his  own. 

"  The  darling  of  the  gods!"  said  Flora  de  I'Orme,  to-night, 
as  she  wound  the  crown  of  scarlet  roses  in  her  lover's  hair; 
and  she  had  said  very  truly.  Fortune  and  the  world  never 
combined  to  flatter  any  man  more  than  they  combined  t(» 


36  CHAKDOS. 

shower  all  gifts  and  graces  on  Ernest  Chandos.  When  he  had 
been  but  a  child  in  his  laces  and  velvets,  princes  had  tossed 
him  bonbons  and  royal  women  caressed  his  loveliness. 
Tutors,  parasites,  servants,  indulged  all  his  fancies,  and  never 
controlled  or  contradicted  him.  At  Eton,  nicknamed  the 
Dauj^hin,  he  bore  all  before  him,  was  noted  for  his  champagne 
breakfasts,  and  had  a  duke  for  his  devoted  fag.  At  seventeen 
he  was  his  own  master.  His  father  died  grandly  as  Chatham, 
falling  back,  without  a  sigh  or  struggle,  after  one  of  the  finest 
speeches  of  his  life,  in  the  full  career  of  his  magnificent  and 
fearless  leadership.  The  boy's  grief  was  intense,  both  passion- 
ate and  enduring,  for  he  had  worshiped  his  father  and  his  fa- 
ther's fame.  By  his  own  wish  he  went  abroad:  he  would  not 
hear  of  a  college.  His  only  guardian  was  his  grandfather  by 
the  distaff-siie,  the  Duke  of  Castlemaine,  an  old  soldier  and 
statesman  of  the  Regency  time:  his  mother  had  died  years 
before.  The  duke  let  him  do  precisely  as  he  chose,  which  was 
to  remain  abroad  four  years,  chiefly  in  the  East,  where  life, 
■whether  waiting  for  the  lion's  or  leopard's  step  through  the 
sultry  hush  of  an  Oriental  night,  or  learning  soft  love-lore 
from  the  dark  eyes  of  a  Georgian  under  the  shadows  of  a 
palm-grove,  enchanted  and  enchained  one  who,  whatever 
after-years  might  make  him,  was  in  his  youth  only  a  poet, 
and  a  lover  of  all  fair  things — specially  of  the  fairness  of  wom, 
en.  Life  seemed  to  conspire  to  idolize  him  and  to  ruin  him» 
after  a  boyhood  of  limitless  indulgence,  limitless  tenderness, 
and  limitless  enjoyment,  with  his  father's  name  the  greatest 
in  the  state,  he  passed  to  the  enervating,  poetic,  picturesque 
sensuousness  of  life  in  the  Eastern  nations,  where  every  breath 
■was  a  perfume,  every  day  was  a  poem,  and  every  lovely  face 
was  a  captive's,  to  be  bought  at  pleasure.  He  returned,  to 
become  the  idol  of  a  fashionable  world.  His  beauty,  his  wit, 
liis  genius,  that  showed  itself,  half  capriciously,  half  indo- 
lently, in  glittering  ye^^a;  d'e^prit,  his  generosity,  that  scattered 
•wealth  to  whoever  asked,  the  brilliance  of  his  sjjlendid  promise, 
the  magnificence  of  his  entertainments  —  these  became  the 
themes  of  the  most  exclusive  and  most  seductive  of  worlds;  and 
■while  men  cited  him  to  the  echo,  with  women  he  had  only  to 
love  and  he  won.  He  was  the  comet  of  liis  horizon,  and  fash- 
ion streamed  after  him. 

Some  romances,  and  some  poems,  "were  traced  to  him — 
dazzling,  vivid  bagatelles,  full  of  glowing,  if  sometimes  ex- 
travagant, fancy,  and  of  that  easy  grace  which  is  only  heaven- 
born  in  authors  or  in  artists.  They  were  raved  of  in  Paria 
-nd  London;  he  found  himself  twic?  famous,  by  literature  and 


CHAXDOS.  27 

by  fashion;  and  his  invitation  was  far  more  courted  than  one 
to  Windsor  or  the  Tuileries:  tltose  only  conferred  rank,  liis 
gave  a  far  higher  and  subtler  distinction — fashion. 

For  the  rest,  his  fortune  was  large,  his  estate  of  Clarencieux 
were  as  noble  as  any  in  England,  and  he  had  a  house  in  Park 
Lane,  an  hotel  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  a  toy  villa  at  Eich- 
mond,  and  a  summer-palace  on  the  Bosphorus;  and,  costly 
aa  were  both  his  pleasures  and  his  art  tastes,  even  these  did 
not  cost  him  so  much  as  a  liberality  that  none  ever  applied  to 
in  vain,  a  liberality  that  was  the  only  thing  in  his  life  he  strove 
to  conceal,  and  that  aided  men  of  talent  to  a  fair  field,  or 
lifted  them  from  the  slough  of  narrowed  fortunes,  by  a  hand 
that  often  was  unseen  by  them,  that  always  gave,  when  com- 
pelled to  give  openly,  with  a  charm  that  banished  all  humiha- 
tion  from  the  gift. 

Thus  was  Chandos  now. 

How  far  had  he  borne  out  his  childish  promise  of  the  night 
in  Westminster?  He  could  not  have  told  himself.  He  was 
the  most  dazzling  leader,  the  most  refined  voluptuary,  the  most 
splendid  patron,  the  most  courted  man,  of  his  times;  and  in 
the  soft  ease,  the  lavished  wealth,  the  unclouded  successes  of  • 
his  present,  he  asked  and  heeded  no  more.  He  was  at  the 
height  of  brilliant  renown,  and  not  even  a  doubled  rose-leaf 
broke  his  rest. 

"  Who  ever  said  that  we  can  not  love  two  at  once?  Tt  is 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  love  half  a  dozen ;  to  love 
but  one  were  to  show  a  shocking  lack  of  appreciation  of  nat- 
ure's fairest  gifts.  Constancy  is  the  worst  possible  compliment 
a  blockhead  can  pay  to  the  beau  sexe,''  thought  Chandos,  the 
next  morning,  as  he  breakfasted,  glancing  through  a  pile  of 
scented  delicate  notes,  cream,  rose,  jxile  tendre,  a  snow-white, 
perfumed  with  various  fragrance,  but  all  breathing  one  tone. 
Women  had  done  their  uttermost  to  force  him  into  vanity 
from  his  childhood,  when  queens  had  petted  him.  Women 
always  coax  their  favorites  into  ruin  if  they  can.  His  tem- 
per chanced  to  be  such  that  they  had  entirely  failed.  Of  his 
personal  beauty  Chandos  never  thought  more  than  he  thought 
of  the  breath  he  drew. 

It  was  twelve  o'clock  as  he  took  his  chocolate  in  his  dress- 
mg-room,  a  chamber  fit  for  a  young  princess,  with  its  azure 
hangings,  its  Eussian  cabinets,  and  its  innumerable  flowers. 
Perfumes  and  female  beauty  were  his  two  special  weaknesses, 
as  they  were  Mohammed's.  He  was  a  man  of  pleasure,  be  it  re- 
membered, with  the  heart  of  a  poet  and  the  eyes  of  a  paintej 


28  CHANDOS. 

— a   combination    to  make   eveiy  temptation   tenfold    more 
tempting. 

''  Cool  you  look  here!"  cried  a  resonant,  lively,  clear  voice, 
telling  as  a  trumpet-call,  as  that  privileged  person  John  Tre- 
venna  pushed  lightly  past  a  valet  and  made  his  way  into  the 
chamber. 

"  My  dear  fellow!  Delighted  to  see  you.  Come  to  break- 
fast?*' 

"  Breakfast?  Had  it  hours  ago,  and  done  no  end  of  busi- 
ness since.  We  poor  devils,  you  know,  are  obliged  to  walk 
about  the  streets  in  the  noonday;  it's  only  your  grands 
seigneurs  who  can  lie  in  the  shade  doing  nothing.  Peaches, 
grapes,  chocolate,  and  claret  for  your  breakfast!  How 
French  j^ou  are!  The  public  wouldn't  think  you  a  safe  mem^ 
ber  of  society  if  they  knew  you  didn't  take  the  orthodox  British 
under-done  chop  and  slice  of  bacon  virtually  undistinguishable 
from  shoe-leather.  I  wonder  what  you  would  do  if  you  were 
a  poor  man,  Ernest? '* 

Chandos  laughed  and  gave  a  shudder.  *'  Do!  glide  away  in 
a  dose  of  morphia.     Poor!    I  can't  fmicg  it,  even." 

Trevenna  smiled  as  he  tossed  himself  into  the  softest  loung- 
ing-chair.  He  had  known  what  poverty  was — known  it  in  its 
ugliest,  its  blackest,  its  barest,  and  had  learned  to  hate  it  with 
a  loathing,  unutterable,  and  thoroughly  justified;  for  poverty 
is  the  grimmest  foe  the  world  holds,  a  serpeiit  that  stifles 
talent  ere  talent  can  rise,  that  blasts  genius  ere  genius  can  be 
heard,  that  sows  hot  hate  by  a  cold  hearth,  and  that  turns  the 
germ  of  good  into  the  giant  of  evil. 

"  Trevenna,"  went  on  Chandos,  taking  one  of  his  hot- 
house peaches,  "  who  was  that  new  beauty  at  the  Due's  yester- 
day?    I  never  saw  anything  lovelier." 

"  There  are  twenty  new  beauties  this  season — in  their  own 
estimation,  at  least!     Be  a  little  more  explicit,  i^lease." 

"  8he  was  with  the  Chesterton.  Eeally  beautiful;  beauti- 
ful  as  that  Giorgione.  There  were  plenty  of  men  about  her. 
I  should  have  asked  who  she  was,  and  have  been  presented  to 
her,  bat  I  had  no  time  to  stay,  even  for  her." 

"  With  the  Chesterton?  Why,  Ivors's  daughter,  of 
course. " 

"  Ivors?  Died  last  year,  didn't  he— of  losing  the  Guineas, 
they  said,  to  the  French  colt.  Why  haven't  I  seen  her  be- 
fore?" 

"  Because  she  had  been  in  Rome.  She's  tJie  thing  of  the 
year  is  my  Lady  Valencia.  They're  raving  of  her  in  the  F. 
0.  this  morning,  and  they  have  passed  her  into  notice  in  the 


CHAN'DOS.  29 

Guards;  there'll  be  nothing  to  make  running  like  her  this  sea- 
son. You'll  see  her  at  the  Drawing-Room  to-morrow,"'  said 
Trevenna.  He  was  walking  court-newsman  and  fashionable 
directory,  being  able  to  tell  you  at  a  second's  notice  who  was 
at  the  bottom  of  the  St.  Leger  scandal,  about  the  powder  in 
Efcoile's  drinking-water,  what  divorces  were  in  train,  what 
amatory  passages  great  ladies  confided  to  their  Bramah-locked 
diaries,  and  whose  loose  paper  was  flying  about  most  awkward- 
ly among  the  Jews.  "  I  noticed  you  looked  at  her  yesterday,'' 
he  pursued:  "  so  did  the  countess.  She's  fearfully  jealous  of 
you!  Take  care  you  don't  get  a  note  chemically  perfumed  a 
la  Brinvillers.  I  wonder  what  ou  earth  she  would  do  if  you 
were  ever  to  marry!" 

"  Shrug  her  pretty  shoulders,  pity  my  wife,  and  console 
me,  to  be  sure.  But  I  shall  never  try  her.  Twenty  years 
hence,  perhajjs,  if  I  have  nothing  better  to  do,  and  ever  see 
the  woman  of  my  ideal — ' ' 

"  That  impossible  she, 
Wherever  she  be, 
In  meerschaum  dreams  of  fantasie!" 

paraphrased  Trevenna.  "  What  a  queer  idea,  to  be  longing 
for  ideal  women  when  there  are  all  the  living  ones  at  your 
service!  That  is  preferring  the  shadow  to  the  substance. 
What  can  you  want  that  Flora  and  all  the  rest  have  not?" 

Chandos  laughed,  nestling  in  among  the  cushions  of  his 
sofa  at  full  length.  "  My  dear  Trevenna,  it  would  be  talking 
in  Arabic  to  you  to  tell  you.  Indeed,  you'd  understand  the 
Sanscrit  much  quicker,  you  most  material  of  men. " 

"  Certainly  I  am  material!  A  material  man  dines  well  and 
digests  well.  A  visionary  man  enjoys  his  banquet  of  the  soul, 
and  has  a  deuced  deal  of  neuralgia  after  it.  AVhich  were  best 
— Lucullus's  cherry-trees,  or  Lucullus's  conquests?  The 
victories  are  no  good  to  anybody  now.  Asia  and  Europe  have 
been  mapped  out  again  twenty  times;  but  cherry  brandy  will 
last  as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  Conquerors  supplant  each 
other  like  mushrooms,  but  cherry  tarts  are  j^erenuial  and 
eternal  as  long  as  generations  are  born  to  go  to  school. 
Material?  Of  course  I  am.  Which  enjoyed  life  best — your 
grand  stunmum  bonum  ? — Dante,  or  Falstaff  ?  Milton,  or  Sir 
John  Suckling?" 

"  And  which  does  jiosterity  revere?" 

"  Posterity  be  shot!  If  I  pick  the  bones  of  ortolans  in 
comfort  while  I  am  alive,  what  does  it  matter  to  me  how  peo- 
ple pick  my  bones  after  I'm  gone?     A  dish  of  truffles  or  ter- 


30  CHANDOS. 

rapia  to  tickle  my  palate  is  a  deal  more  to  my  taste  than  a 
wreath  of  inimorfcelles  hung  on  my  grave.  I  detest  jDOsterity; 
every  kiug  hates  his  heir;  but  I  dearly  love  a  good  dinner.  If 
I  could  choose  what  should  become  of  my  bones,  I'd  have 
myself  made  into  gelatine;  gelatine's  such  a  rascally  cheat, 
and  assists  at  such  capital  banquets,  it's  the  most  appropriate 
final  destiny  for  any  human  being  that  was  ever  devised.  But 
what's  the  good  of  my  talking  to  you?  We  look  at  life 
through  different  glasses. " 

"Eather!" 

"  A  disdainful  enough  dissyllable.  Well,  we  shall  see  which 
is  best  content  of  us  two,  after  all — I,  the  animal  man,  or 
you,  the  artistic.  You've  tremendous  odds  in  your  favor.  I 
shall  deserve  great  honor  if  I  make  any  head  against  you. " 

A  shadow  passed  slightly  over  the  face  of  Chandos;  he  had 
the  variable  and  impressionable  temperament  of  a  poetic  nat- 
ure, a  deep  thoughtfulness,  even  to  melancholy,  mingled  in 
contrast  with  the  gayest  and  most  nonchalant  epicureanism. 

"  Content?  at  the  end?  How  is  it  to  be  secured?  ^mili- 
anus  led  a  noble  and  glorious  life — to  fall  by  an  assassin's 
dagger.  Ovid  led  the  gayest  and  the  brightest  life — to  go  out 
to  the  frozen  misery  of  Pannonia.  Africanus  was  a  hero — to  be 
accused  of  stealing  the  public  money.  Petronius  was  an 
epicurean — to  die  by  a  lingering  torture." 

His  voice  was  musing,  and  there  was  a  touch  of  sadness  in 
it.  Trevenna  laughed  as  he  took  a  cigar  from  a  case  standing 
near,  lighted  it,  and  rose. 

"  Hang  Petronius!  It  could  have  been  no  fun  to  torment 
him;  the  fellow  died  so  game — wouldn't  wince  once!  As  for 
the  end  of  the  farce  we  play  in, 

"  '  'Tis  not  in  mortals  to  deserve  success; 

But  you'll  do  more,  Sempronius:  j^ou'll  command  it!' 

I  like  thp.t  misquotation.  Only  '  deserve  '  success,  and  I 
should  like  to  know  who'll  give  you  your  deserts!  But  I  must 
go.  There  are  no  end  of  poor  devils  waiting  outside,  work- 
ing authors  and  working  jewelers,  mute,  inglorious  Miltons, 
and  glorious,  talkative  tailors,  dealers  with  cracked  antiques, 
and  poets  with  cracked  novelties,  sculptors  with  their  bronzes, 
and  young  Chattertons  with  their  brass — I  beg  pardon,  I  for- 
got! one  mustn't  laugh  at  genius,  even  in  a  shabby  coat,  here." 

"  No:  Le  Sage  had  no  coat  on  in  his  attic  when  he  refused 
the  millionaire's  bribe.  '  Tout  compt  fait,  je  suis  plus  riche 
que  vous,  et  je  refuse!'  " 

*'  And  you  think  that  sublime?  to  tell  the  truth  and  starve? 


CHANDOS.  31 

Faugh!  Fd  have  taken  their  check,  and  written  a  ten  times 
more  stinging  Tiircaret  afterward!  But,  on  my  word,  Chan- 
dos,  your  anterooms  are  as  thronged  as  any  Chesterfield's  or 
Halifax's  of  a  hundred  years  ago/' 

"  Nonsense!  There  is  no  jaatronage  nowadays.  A  man 
makes  himself." 

"  Pardon  me,  his  bank-balance  makes  him!  If  it's  heavy 
enough,  it  will  cover  all  sins— intellectual,  moral,  and  gram- 
matical— and  float  him  high  as  heaven.  So  you  are  keeping 
that  young  Montrose  at  Oriel?" 

"  How  could  you  find  that  out?  He  is  a  boy  of  great 
promise;  the  university  will  give  him  a  fair  start," 

"  At  your  expense!  Spending  your  money  in  keeping  pen- 
niless lads  at  college?  Isn't  there  such  a  thing  as  quixotic 
generosity,  Chandos?" 

"Isn't  there  such  a  thing  as  officious  interference,  Tre- 
venna?" 

The  rebuke  was  very  gentle.  Trevenna  took  it  with  the 
best  of  good  humor. 

"  A  delicate  reproof,  monseigneur!  Well,  what  are  your 
commands  to-day?  I  know  what  to  do  about  securing  those 
genre  pictures;  and  I'm  now  going  to  the  Corner  to  see  what 
the  midday  betting  is  for  us;  and  I  sent  the  cabochon 
emeralds  to  Mademoiselle  Flora,  and  grudged  her  them 
heartily;  and  I  have  seen  to  the  enlarging  of  the  smoking- 
room  of  the  '  Anadyomene.'     Anything  else?" 

"  My  dear  fellow,  no;  I  think  not,  I  thank  you.  Unless — 
they  tell  me  there  are  some  good  things  in  Delia  Robbia  at  the 
Vere  collection:  you  might  look  at  them,  if  you  don't  mind 
the  trouble;  buy,  if  they  are  really  perfect.  And  bring  me 
word  round,  if  you  can  learn,  what  houses  this  daughter  of 
Ivors  will  show  at  to-night.  I  never  saw  a  lovelier  face;  but 
there  is  a  quality  above  beauty  that  probably  she  has  not. 
Rahel  is  not  absolutely  handsome;  but  that  woman  has  such 
sorcery  in  her  that  you  could  not  be  ten  minutes  with  her 
without  being  in  love." 

With  which  tribute  to  the  great  actress's  power,  Chandos,  a 
connoisseur  \\\  female  charms,  from  those  of  a  Greek  grape- 
girl  to  those  of  a  Tuileries  princess,  from  the  grace  of  a  Baya- 
dere to  the  glamour  of  a  Hosiere,  resumed  his  jiuisuit  of  glanc- 
ing through  the  innumerable  little  amorous  notes  that 
accompanied  his  breakfast,  while  Trevenna  sauntered  out, 
pausing  a  moment  to  put  iu  his  head  at  the  door: 

"  I  lamed  my  horse  over  that  wretched  heap  of  stones  in 
Bolton  Row.     May  I  use  one  of  your  horses?" 


33  CHANDOS. 

"  My  dear  fellow,  what  a  question!  My  stables  are  yours, 
of  course/' 

And  John  Trevenua  went  out  on  his  morning's  work.  He 
called  himself  a  business-man;  but  what  his  business  was,  be- 
yond being  prime  minister,  master  of  the  horse,  and  chancellor 
of  the  exchequer  to  Chandos,  and  knowing  all  the  news  before 
anybody  else  whispered  it,  was  what  was  never  altogether  as- 
certained. Be  his  business  what  it  might,  in  amusement  Tre- 
venua  brought  his  own  welcome  to  every  one;  and  he  enter- 
tained  society  so  well  that  society  was  always  ready  to  entertain 
him. 

Society,  that  smooth  and  sparkhng  sea,  is  excessively  diffi- 
cult to  navigate;  its  surf  looks  no  more  than  champagne' foam, 
but  a  thousand  quicksands  and  shoals  lie  beneath;  there  are 
breakers  ahead  for  more  than  half  the  dainty  pleasure-boats 
that  skim  their  hour  upon  it;  and  the  foundered  lie  by  mill- 
ions, forgotten,  five  fathoms  deep  below.  The  only  safe 
ballast  upon  it  is  gold  dust;  and  if  stress  of  weather  come  on 
you  it  will  swallow  you  without  remorse.  Trevenua  had  none 
of  this  ballast;  he  had  come  out  to  sea  in  as  ticklish  a  cockle- 
shell as  might  be;  he  might  go  down  any  moment,  and  he 
carried  no  commission,  being  a  sort  of  nameless,  unchartered 
rover:  yet  float  he  did,  securely. 

Twelve  years  before,  one  hot  night  at  Baden,  a  penniless 
young  Englishman  had  lost  more  than  he  had  in  his  purse — 
had,  indeed,  in  the  world;  the  bank  arrested  him;  his  pros- 
pect for  life  was  to  languish  in  German  prisons,  the  prey  of 
the  debts  which  he  could  not  liquidate  and  none  else  would 
pay  for  him.  For  he  was  alone  in  life,  and  had,  for  all  he 
knew,  not  a  solitary  friend  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  A  boy 
of  twenty,  throwing  his  gold  about  to  the  enchantress  of  play, 
heard  the  story,  paid  the  debts,  and  freed  the  debtor.  The 
boy  was  Chandos,  the  young  master  of  Clarencieux.  It  was 
the  last  dilemma  into  which  astute  John  Trevenna  ever  let 
life  betray  him;  and  it  was  his  first  step  toward  social  suc- 
cess. His  boy  benefactor  was  not  content  with  letting  his 
good  services  begin  and  end  at  the  prison  of  the  duchy:  he 
made  the  prisoner  his  guest  then  and  there,  in  the  sumptuous 
magnificence  of  the  life  he  was  leading  among  emperors  and 
princes,  peeresses  and  Aspasias,  in  that  pleasant  whirl  of  ex- 
travagance called  the  Baden  season.  He  was  infinitely 
amused,  too,  with  a  companion  sufficiently  near  his  own  age 
to  enter  into  all  his  pleasures,  and  who  was  the  first  person  he 
had  ever  met  who  told  him  the  truth  with  frank  good  nature 
and  never  annoyed  him  by  flattery.     Frcm  that  day,  through 


CHANDOS.  33 

Chandos,  Joha  Trevenua  was  welcomed  in  the  world;  and  the 
world  soon  kept  him  in  it  as  a  sort  of  Town  Triboulet. 

He  was  a  privileged  person;  every  one  knows  how  immense 
a  carte  blanche  is  given  by  those  words.  Chandos  was  the 
fashion;  he  pleased  himself  by  doing  all  good  services  to  Tre- 
venna  that  circumstances  would  allow  of;  and  the  world  petted 
Trevenna  because  Chandos  befriended  him.  He  lived  so  very 
near  tlie  rose  that  much  of  the  tender  dews  so  lavishly  poured 
down  on  the  king  flower  fell  of  necessity  upon  him.  He  was 
often  rude,  always  brusque,  sansfaQon,  sometimes  even  a  little 
coarse;  but  he  was  so  frank,  so  imperturbably  good-humored, 
told  stories  so  admirably,  and  had  such  a  thorough  spice  of 
true  wit,  that  he  was  as  good  with  wine  as  anchovies  or  olives, 
and  men  had  him  with  their  wines  accordingly.  Was  a 
chateau  dull  on  the  shores  of  Monaco  or  Baia3,  or  a  country- 
house  in  the  recesses;  was  there  a  dearth  of  news  in  a  hot 
club-room  at  the  fag-end  of  a  season;  was  the  conversatij|& 
dragging  wearily  over  an  aristocratic  dinner-table;  or  was  a 
duke  half  dead  of  ennui  in  the  midst  of  a  great  gathering,  the 
bright,  laughing  face  of  John  Trevenna,  with  the  white  teeth 
glancing  in  a  merry,  honest  smile,  always  fresh,  never  faded, 
never  bored,  but  always  looking,  because  always  feeling,  as  if 
life  were  the  pleasantest  comedy  that  could  be  played,  was  the 
signal  of  instant  relief  and  of  instant  amusement.  The 
legions  of  blue-devils  fleiv  before  his  approach,  and  no  ennui 
could  withstand  the  tonic  of  his  caustic  humor  and  his  in- 
cessant mirth. 

Even  his  Grace  of  Castlemaiue,  haughtiest  of  Garter  knights, 
most  hard  to  please  of  all  regency  wits — even  that  splendid  old 
man,  who  had  set  his  face  against  this  stray  member  of 
society,  could  not  altogether  withstand  him. 

"  Chaudos's  liomme  cV  affaires?  An  interloper,  sir,  an  ad- 
venturer, and  I  detest  adventurers — tell  you  a  first-rate  story, 
make  you  a  first-rate  mot,  but  always  have  a  second  king  in 
their  sleeve  for  your  ecarto!  Society's  a  soil  you  can't  tveed 
too  vigorously.  Still,  a  humorous  fellow,  I  must  confess;  a 
clever  fellow — very.'' 

So  John  Trevenna  had  laughed  his  way  into  the  world,  and, 
laughing,  held  his  own  there.  No  one  ever  heard  the  story  of 
the  Baden  debts  from  Chandos,  but  Trevenna  openly  con- 
fessed himself  a  poor  man;  he  never  teased  peoj^le  with  re- 
minding them  of  it,  but  stated  tiie  fact  once  for  all  without 
disguise.  He  made  a  little  money  on  the  turf,  and  doubled 
that  little  now  and  then  by  ingenious  traffic  here  and  there  in 
the  commercial  gambling  that  the  world  sanctifies;  but  nobody 

8 


34  CHANDOS. 

knew^  this.  He  was  simply  a  man-upon-town.  He  lived  verj 
inexpensively,  dining  out  every  night  of  his  life;  he  had  no 
vices;  he  was  an  epicure,  but  that  taste  he  only  indulged  at 
other  people's  tables;  and  he  had  no  weakness  for  women;  if 
you  had  offered  him  a  beautiful  mistress  or  a  dozen  of  Imperial 
Tokay,  he  would  without  hesitation  have  taken  the  Tokay. 

As  regarded  his  intellect,  he  had  talent  enough  to  be  any- 
thing— from  a  jockey  to  an  embassador,  from  a  head-cook  to 
a  premier. 

"  The  Queen  of  Lilies  will  be  at  the  Des  Vaux  to-night, 
Chandos,"  said  he,  that  evening,  in  the  green  drawing-room 
at  Park  Lane,  where,  some  dozen  guests  having  dined  with 
him,  including  8.A.R.  the  Due  de  Neuilly,  and  H.S.H.  the 
Prince  Carl  of  Steinberg,  Chandos  was  now  playing  baccarat, 
half  a  hundred  engagements  being  thrown  over,  as  chanced 
inevitably  with  him  every  night  in  the  season.  Trevenna 
himself  was  not  iDlaying:  he  never  touched  cards  at  any  game 
except  whist,  which  he  had  studied  as — wliat  it  is — a  science. 
He  stood  on  the  hearth-rug,  looking  on,  takiug  now  and  tlien 
a  glass  of  Moselle  or  Maraschino  from  a  console  near. 

"  What  a  charming  name — The  Queen  of  Lilies!  Who  is 
she?"  asked  his  host,  having  already  forgotten  the  commissiou 
he  gave. 

"  The  Queen  of  Lihes?  Ah,  ahe  is  exquisite!  you  have  not 
seen  her,  of  course,  Ernest?''  asked  the  French  prince.  "  Th© 
Laureate  gave  her  the  title. " 

"  In  a  sonnet,  made  instantly  public  by  being  marked  Pri- 
vate. If  you  want  a  piece  of  news  to  fly  over  Europe  like 
lightning,  whisper  it  as  a  secret  that  would  infallibly  destroy 
you  if  it  ever  got  wind,"  put  in  Trevenna,  who  among  prince? 
and  peers  never  could  keep  his  tongue  still. 

"  But  who  is  she?  A  new  dancer,  I  hope.  We  have  noth- 
ing good  in  the  coulisses." 

''A  dancer?     No!     She  is  Ivors's  daughter." 

*'Ah!  I  remember,  I  saw  her  yesterday.  The  Queen  of 
Lilies,  do  you  call  her?     The  name  is  an  idyl!" 

"  Ah!"  said  his  Grace  of  Crowndiamonds,  with  a  cross  be- 
tween an  oath  and  a  regret.  "  She  is  a  great  deal  too  hand* 
some!'* 

"  Too  handsome?  How  charming  a  blemish!  They  gen- 
erally sin  the  other  way,  my  dear  Crown. " 

"  Too  handsome;  for — she  is  ice!" 

"  Never  find  fault  with  women,  old  fellow!  We  may  all  of 
m  think  that  each  of  those  dainty  treasures  has  a  flaw  some- 


CHANDOS.  35 

where;  but  we  should  never  hint  a  doubt  of  them,  any  more 
than  of  their  Dresden/' 

"  Though  the  best  Dresden  is  only  soiled  earth,  just  painted 
and  glazed!'^  broke  in  Trevenna,  taking  out  his  watch. 
"  You  told  me  to  learn  where  she  went.  At  nine  she  dined 
with  the  French  Embassador;  at  twelve  she  was  at  Living- 
stone House;  at  one  she  was  at  Lady  Bellingham's;  and  noW; 
fifty-five  minutes  past  one,  she  is  at  the  Countess  des  Vaux's. "' 
"  Do  you  find  out  everything,  Monsieur  Trevenna?"  laughed 
the  French  due. 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  with  a  certain  saucy  triumph  in  his 
bold  Saxon-blue  eyes — blue  as  forget-me-nots,  and  keen  as  a 
knife. 

"  Yes,  monseigneur — if  I  wish." 

The  answer  was  quiet,  and,  wonderful  for  him,  without  a 
jest;  but  the  prince  turned  and  gave  him  a  more  earnest  look 
than  he  had  ever  bestowed  on  this  flaneur,  this  rodeur  of  the 
English  clubs. 

"He  will  be  a  successful  man,  a  great  man,  ten  to  one, 
when  our  brilliant  Chandos,  who  has  the  genius  of  a  Goethe, 
will  have  died  of  dissipation  or  have  killed  himself  for  some 
mistress's  infidelity,"  thought  the  duke,  a  keen  man  of  the 
world,  while  his  eyes  glanced  from  the  sagacious,  indomitable, 
fresh-colored  face  of  Trevenna  to  the  delicate,  proud,  dazzling 
beauty  of  Chandos,  with  the  light  in  his  deep-blue  eyes  and 
the  laughter  on  his  insouciant  lips. 

"  We  should  all  of  us  have  been  at  those  places,  if  your 
baccarat  had  not  beguiled  us,  Chandos/'  said  the  Comte  de  la 
Joie;  "  but  social  entertainments  are  a  crying  cruelty.-" 

'_'  And  a  great  mistake.  Society  is  ruined  by  the  roture, 
which  has  nothing  to  recommend  its  entertainments  but  the 
cooking,  and  has  made  the  cooking  the  measure  of  the  enter- 
tainments. St.  Fond's  verdict  of  English  banquets  remains 
true  to  the  letter:  'lis  se  saoulfirent  grandement  et  se  diver- 
tirent  moult  tristement!'  " 

"Oh,  we  all  know  what  you  are,  Chandos,''  cried  Tre- 
venna. "  You'd  exchange  your  own  cook — though  he  ii^ 
priceless  were  it  only  for  his  soups — to  be  able  to  eat  a  dried 
date  with  Plato,  and  would  give  up  White's  for  the  Scipionic 
circle  or  the  Mermaid  evenings!" 

"  Perhaps.  Though  I  admit  you  are  a  more  practical  phi- 
losopher than  any  in  Acadenius,  and  are  as  good  a  comj)anion 
as  Lucilius  or  l>en  Jonson." 

"  1  hope  I  am,"  said  Trevenna,  complacently.  "  I  bet  you 
the  philosophers  flavored  their  dates,  as  we  do  our  olives,  by 


so  CHANDOS. 

discussing  Lalage's  ankles  aud  the  Agora  gossip.  Scipio  talked 
tine,  we  know;  Lueilius  laughed  at  him  for  it,  and  fine  talkers 
are  always  bores;  and  as  for  the  Mermaid — Raleigh  whispered 
wicked  things  of  the  maids  of  honor,  and  Shakespeare  won- 
dered what  old  Combe  would  leave  him  in  his  will,  and  Ben 
joked  him  about  the  Crown  Inn  widow  over  mulled  posset. 
The  immortals  were  as  mortal  as  we  are,  every  whit/^ 

AVith  which  Trevenna  washed  down  their  mortality  by  a 
glass  of  golden  water. 

"  Shall  we  all  go  to  Lady  des  Vaux's  and  criticise  this  Lily 
Queen,  Chandos?"  asked  the  Due  de  Neuilly.  "  She  will 
not  be  believed  in  till  you  have  given  her  the  cordon  of  your 
approbation. " 

Prince  Carl  was  willing,  the  baccarat  was  d&serted,  and  they 
went  to  the  crowded  rooms  of  the  Countess  des  Vaux,  one  of 
those  great  leaders  of  the  political  world,  who  pass  their  ex- 
istence in  the  supreme  belief  that  cabinets  would  fall  aud  the 
constitution  perish  if  it  were  not  for  their  boudoir  conferences, 
which  secure  Providence  to  their  party  and  hold  Europe  to- 
gether over  a  cup  of  souchong. 

"  There  she  is!"  said  ISTeuilly,  on  the  staircase,  that  was  still 
thronged. 

Chandos  looked  through  the  long  vista  of  light  through  the 
opened  doors,  and  saw  a  loveliness  as  fair  as  the  lilies  after 
which  they  had  named  her. 

She  was  beautiful  as  a  young  deer,  this  j'oung  English 
patrician,  and  had  something  of  a  stag's  lofty  grace.  Her 
eyes  were  a  dark,  deep  brown,  large,  thoughtful,  proud,  swept 
by  lashes  a  shade  darker  still:  her  lips  were  sweet  as  half- 
opened  roses;  her  hair,  the  same  hue  as  her  eyes,  was  drawn 
back  in  soft,  floating  masses  from  a  brow  like  a  Greek  an- 
tique; she  was  very  tall,  and  her  form  was  simply  jDerfect. 
It  was  in  its  fullest  loveliness,  too,  for  she  had  been  some 
years  in  Pome,  and  successive  deaths  in  her  family  had  kept 
her  long  in  almost  comparative  seclusion. 

"You  said  she  was  cold!  Such  beauty  as  that  can  never 
be  passionless,"  said  Chandos. 

As  though  his  voice  had  reached  her  through  the  long  dis- 
tance that  severed  them,  she  turned  her  head  at  that  moment, 
and  their  eyes  met. 

Corals,  pink  and  delicate,  rivet  continents  together;  ivy 
tendrils,  that  a  child  may  break,  hold  Norman  walls  with  bonds 
of  iron;  a  little  ring,  a  toy  of  gold,  a  jewp,/er's  bagatelle,  forges 
chains  heavier  tha  i  the  galley-slave's:  iiO  ,* woman's  look  may 
fetter  a  lifetime. 


CHANDOS,  37 

"Passionless!  with  those  eyes?  Impossible!"  said  Chan- 
dos. 

"  Oh,  she  will  have  two  passions,"  said  Crowndiamonds, 
dryly — "  two  very  strong  passions — vanity  and  ambition!" 

*'  For  shame!"  laughed  Chandos.  "  Never  be  cynical  upon 
women,  Crown.  It  is  breaking  butterflies  upon  the  wheel, 
and  shooting  humming-birds  with  field-pieces.  Well,  let  the 
Lily  Queen's  sins  be  what  they  may,  she  is  lovely  enough  to 
make  us  forgive  them. " 

"  PrSs  des  femmes  que  sommes-nous? 
Des  pantins  qu'on  ballottel" 

laughed  the  Due  de  Neuilly.  "  Madame  de  la  Vivarol  sees 
you,  Ernest,  and  already  looks  jealous." 

"  I  hope  not,  mou  prince.  I  would  almost  as  soon  see  a 
lady  ugly  as  jealous.  When  she  once  begins  to  murmur  '  for- 
ever,' she  has  given  the  first  chill  to  one's  love,"  answered 
Chandos,  with  his  low,  melodious  laugh,  that  had  not  a  trace 
of  care  in  it.  "  You  know,  I  always  thought,  like  Goethe, 
the  proof  of  the  tenderest  heart  is  to  love  often  !" 

And  he,  in  whose  2oath  loves  were  scattered  as  many  as  the 
hours,  wooing  him  to  that  inconstancy  which  is,  after  all,  the 
salt  of  life — "  en  amour  ce  u'est  que  les  commencements  qui 
soient  charmants;  je  ne  m'etonne  pas  qu'on  trouve  du  plaisir 
a  recommencer  si  souvent,"  as  the  Prince  de  Ligne  has  it — 
made  his  way  at  last  into  the  rooms  with  the  French  and  En- 
glish dukes,  to  be  detained  right  and  left,  and  make  his  further 
way  with  difficulty  into  his  hostess's  presence. 

There  was  empressement  wherever  Chandos  moved;  he  was 
the  idol  of  this  ultra-fashionable  and  ultra-exclusive  world. 
They  followed  all  his  social  laws,  and  courted  all  his  words. 

When  he  was  at  all  free,  and  sought  to  look  for  the  Queen 
of  Lilies,  he  found  that  she  had  loft  the  rooms. 

"  I  shall  see  her  at  the  Drawing-Room,"  thought  Chandos, 
whom  too  many  were  ever  ready  to  console  for  him  ever  to 
be  left  to  regret  an  absent  loveliness.  Nevertheless,  two  or 
three  times  that  Jiight,  in  the  midst  of  fashionable  crowds,  in 
the  soft  smiles  o£  other  beauties,  or  in  the  incensed,  gas-lit 
air  of  Claire  liahel's  late  supper,  in  the  hours  that  followed, 
there  rose  before  him,  unbidden,  that  proud,  stag-like  head 
and  those  luminous,  meditative  eyes  of  the  Lily  Queen:  they 
rose  before  the  glitter  of  La  Vivarol's,  they  rose  beyond  the 
luster  of  liahel's.  Men  of  his  temperament,  the  temj)erament 
of  Goethe,  are  incessantly  accused  of  inconstancy,  because  the 
list  of  their  loves  is  lono;.     On  the  contrary,  they  are  most 


38  CHANDOS. 

constant — to  their  own  ideal,  which  they  unceasingly  pursue 
in  every  form  which  has  its  out^vard  semblance.  \V^hat  their 
dreams  long  for  is  not  there — in  that  beautiful  shadow  that 
looked  so  like  it,  but  which  was  but  a  transparency,  only 
bright  through  borrowed  light;  then  they  cease  to  love  till 
again  they  pursue  a  shadow;  and  fools  call  them  libertines. 

That  night,  or  rather  in  the  dawn,  Heloise,  Countess  de  la 
Vivarol,  looked  at  her  own  face  in  the  mirror  while  her  attend- 
ants were  taking  the  sapphires  and  onyxes  from  her  hair.  It 
was  well  worth  looking  at,  with  its  mignonne  mouth,  its 
glancing  falcon  radiance  of  regard,  its  indescribable  witchery 
of  coquetry,  and  its  rich,  delicate  tints,  independent,  as  yet, 
even  of  pearl-powder.  "  Belle  comme  tin  ange,  et  mesqiiine 
comme  nil  diahlotin,"  her  mother  had  used  to  say  of  her  in 
childhood;  and  the  description  still  held  good.  Her  mother 
was  the  Princesse  Lucille  Yiardort,  who  had  married  an  En- 
glishman, a  rich  baronet;  her  father  none  was  ever  so  bold  as 
to  name — the  baronet  himself  jDut  in  no  claim  for  her;  he  lived 
apart  from  his  wife,  who  was  a  bandsome,  sunn}^  good-tem- 
pered creature,  as  happy  in  the  midst  of  the  slander  to  which 
she  gave  rise  as  a  sea-anemone  in  a  rock  pool.  It  was  her 
normal  element:  the  Viardort,  that  restless  and  dominant 
race  who  had  played  at  bowls  with  nothing  less  than  all  the 
rolling  diadems  of  EurojDe,  always  had  scandalized  the  world 
ever  since  they  burst,  meteor-like,  upon  it.  All  the  Viardort 
have  sovereignty,  and  get  it  though  none  are  born  to  it. 
Heloise,  who  at  sixteen  married  the  enormous  wealth  of  the 
Count  Granier  de  la  Vivarol,  was  not  behind  her  race.  She 
plunged  eagerly,  up  to  her  lovely  throat,  in  European  intrigues 
— so  eagerly  that  she  was  now  banished  from  France.  Her 
lord  did  not  follow  her^ — there  lives  not  the  man  who  could 
prefer  a  wife  to  Paris — but  allowed  her  richly,  so  I'ichly,  in- 
deed, that  she  never  called  him  anything  worse  than  "  ce  petit 
droU  "  when  speaking  of  him  in  connection  with  her  mone/ 
matters.  With  any  other  affairs  he  never  came  under  discus- 
sion. 

Before  her  banishment  from  Paris,  Chandos,  at  the  same 
time  with  herself,  had  been  among  the  First  Circle  of  autumn 
guests  at  Compiegne.  In  the  torchlight  mrees,  in  the  moon- 
lit terraces,  in  the  palace  theatricals,  in  the  forest  hunts,  she 
had  fascinated  him,  he  had  attracted  her.  M.  le  Comte  was 
a  thoroughly  well-bred  mail,  who  knew  tlie  destinies  of  hus- 
bands, abhorred  a  scene,  aiid  neither  sought  a  duel  nor  a  di- 
Torce;  besides,  he  was  not  at  the  court.     Their  love-passages 


CHANDOS.  ^9 

went  silvery  smooth,  and  were  quite  a  page  out  of  Boccaccio. 
Now  marlame  was  disposed  to  be  jealous,  and  Chandos  was  a 
little  disposed  to  be  tired.  Studies  after  Boccaccio  often  end 
thus — in  bathos. 

To-night  she  looked  at  her  face  in  her  mirror,  and  her  tiny 
white  teeth  clinched  like  a  little  lion-dog's.  Perhaps  the  love 
she  had  taught  mercilessly  so  often  had  revenged  itself  here  on 
its  teacher;  perhaps  it  was  but  pique  that  made  her  so  tena- 
cious to  keep  the  sway  she  had  held  over  the  handsomest  man 
of  his  age;  be  the  spring  love,  vanity,  passion,  or  envy,  what 
it  would,  lier  eyes  glittered  with  a  dangerous  gleam  under  her 
curling  lashes,  and  she  muttered,  between  her  set  teeth — 
"  If  he  ever  love  another,  if  it  be  twenty  years  hence — " 
The  menace  was  not  the  less  registered  in  her  heart,  because 
left  unfinished  on  her  lips;  even  if  the  twenty  years  passed  be- 
fore she  had  to  carry  it  out,  the  fair  countess  was  not  a  woman 
to  forget  it,  or  to  falter  in  it. 


CHAPTER  III. 

A   PRIME   MINISTER   AT   HOME. 

Over  and  over  again  John  Trevenna  had  been  pressed  to 
take  up  residence  ia  the  stately  suites  of  the  Park  Lane  house; 
but  this  he  had  always  refused.  He  dined  there,  lunched 
there,  ordered  what  he  chose  there,  aud  stayed  for  months 
each  year  at  Clarencieux;  but  he  had  his  own  rooms  in  town, 
in  a  quiet  street  near  the  clubs.  He  liked  to  retain  a  distinct 
personality.  Besides,  people  came  to  see  him  here  who  could 
never  have  shown  themselves  before  the  porter  of  the  great 
leader  of  fashion;  men  with  bull-dog  heads  and  close-cut  hair, 
known  as  "  sporting  gents;"  men  with  the  glance  of  a  ferret 
and  the  jewelry  of  Burlington  Arcade,  utterly  and  unmistak- 
ably "  horsy;'*  men  who  always  had  "  a  lovely  thing  close  by 
in  the  mews — go  in  your  'and,  and  only  thirty  sovs.,"  to  sell, 
but  who  traded  in  many  things  beside  toy  terriers;  men  very 
soberly  dressed,  hard-featured,  hard-headed  members  of  ti-ades- 
unions;  men  with  long  floating  beards,  the  look  of  Biirschen, 
and  "artist"  written  on  them  for  those  who  ran  to  read, 
without  the  paint-splashes  on  their  coats;  men  with  clean- 
shaven faces  or  white-pointed  beards,  but  shaven  or  hirsute, 
Israelites  to  the  bone;  all  these  varieties,  and  many  more, 
came  to  see  Trevenna,  who  could  never  liavo  gone  into  the 
hall  of  the  fastidious  and  patrician  Chandos.  On  the  surface, 
Trevenna  had  but  one  set  of  friends,  his  aristocratic  acquaint- 


40  CHANDOS. 

ances  of  the  clubs  and  the  Clarendon  dinners;  snl  rosa,  thia 
bright  Bohemian  was  thoroughly  versed  in  every  phase  and, 
indeed,  every  sink  of  London  life  and  of  human  nature.  It 
was  "  his  v/ay  "  to  know  everybody — it  might  be  of  use  some 
day;  he  went  now — in  the  same  spirit  of  restless  activity  and 
indomitable  perseverance  which  had  made  him  as  a  boy  ask 
the  meaning  of  every  machine  and  the  tricks  of  every  trade 
that  he  passed — to  the  probing  of  every  problem  and  the  ce- 
menting of  every  brick  in  life.  The  multitudes  whom  he  knew 
were  countless;  the  histories  he  had  fathomed  were  un record- 
able. Men  were  the  pawns,  knights,  bishops,  and  castles  of 
Trevenna's  chess,  and  he  set  himself  to  win  the  game  with 
them,  never  neglecting  the  smallest,  for  a  pawn  sometimes 
gives  checkmate. 

Trevenna  sat  now  at  breakfast  early  in  the  morning — half 
past  eight,  indeed — though  he  had  not  been  in  bed  until  four. 
He  slept  the  sound,  sweet,  peaceful  sleep  of  a  child,  and  very 
little  of  that  profound  repose  sufficed  for  him.  His  rooms 
were  scrupulously  neat,  but  bare  of  everything  approaching 
art  or  decoration;  Chandos  could  not  have  lived  a  day  in  them, 
if  he  had  been  a  poor  man;  condemned  to  them,  he  would 
have  iiutig  an  engraving  here,  or  a  cast  from  the  antique  there, 
that  would  have  gone  some  way  to  redeem  them  in  their  useful 
ugliness.  Trevenna  was  utterly  indifferent  to  that  ugliness; 
as  far  as  his  eyes  went,  he  would  have  been  as  happy  in  a  gar- 
ret as  in  a  palace.  His  breakfast  was  only  coffee  and  a  clioj); 
he  exercised  the  strictest  economy  in  his  life.  It  was  not,  to 
be  sure,  very  painful  to  him:  for  he  had  the  run  of  all  the 
wealthiest  houses  in  England,  and  was  welcomed  to  every  ta- 
ble. Still,  it  was  significant  of  the  man  that,  well  as  he  liked 
his  gourmets'  delicacies,  he  never  by  any  chance  squandered 
money  on  them,  and  if  he  had  to  go  without  them  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end,  never  would  have  done.  Naturally  he  was 
very  self-indulgent,  but  he  had  schooled  himself  into  consider- 
able control. 

The  coffee  was  something  rough,  the  chop  was  something 
tough — English  cookery  pure;  but  Trevenna,  who  would 
know  to  a  T  what  was  wanting  in  the  flavor  of  a  white  sauce 
at  the  best  club  in  Pall  Mall,  and  who  could  appreciate  every 
finest  shade  in  the  most  nuisterly  art  of  the  Park  Lane  clief, 
took  both  chop  and  coffee  without  a  murmur.  In  the  first 
place,  he  had  the  good  appetite  of  a  thoroughly  healthy  and 
vigorous  constitution;  in  the  second,  he  would  compensate 
himself  by  the  daintiest  and  most  delicious  of  noon  dejeuner  at 
Chandos's  house. 


CHAISTDOS.  4i 

While  he  eat  and  drank  he  was  looking  at  some  memoranda, 
And  talking  to  a  man  before  him — a  man  who  stood  before 
him  as  an  inferior  before  his  employer;  a  tall  man,  lean,  ven- 
erable, saturnine,  with  iron-gray  hair  that  floated  on  his 
shoulders  like  a  patriarch,  and  down  his  chest  in  a  waving 
beard — a  man  in  iiis  sixtieth  year,  with  his  shoulders  a  little 
oowed,  and  his  hands  lightly  clasped  in  front  of  him.  This  was 
Ignatius  Mathias,  of  the  firm  of  Tindall  &  Co.,  which  firm 
was  well  known  Citywards,  in  a  little,  dark,  crooked,-  stifling 
lane,  where  their  dusky,  sullen-looking,  rickety  door  was 
only  too  familiar  to  men  in  the  Guards,  men  in  Middle  Tem- 
ple, men  in  the  Commons,  and  men  in  nothing  at  all  but  a 
fashionable  reputation  and  a  cloud  of  debts.  Tindall  &  Co. 
dealt  in  damaged  paper  chiefly;  they  bought  up  most  of  the 
awkward  things  that  floated  in  the  market,  and,  it  was  said, 
were  making  a  great  deal  of  money.  This  was  but  guess- 
work, however;  for  the  little  grimy  den  of  an  office  told  no 
secrets,  however  many  it  guarded;  and  who  was  Tindall,  and 
who  were  Co.,  was  a  thing  never  known;  the  only  person  over 
seen,  ever  found  there  as  responsible  was  Ignatius  Mathias,  a 
Castilian  Jew,  and  most  people  considered  that  he  was  the 
firm;  they  never  were  surer  on  this  point  than  when  he  shook 
his  head  gravely  and  said  he  "  could  but  act  on  his  instruc- 
tions; his  principal  had  been  very  positive;  his  principal  could 
not  wait." 

But,  be  this  as  it  might,  Ignatius  Mathias  was  no  common 
Jew  lender;  he  never  sought  to  palm  ofE  a  miserable  home- 
smoked  Eembrandt,  a  cracked  violin  christened  a  Stradivar- 
ius,  or  a  case  of  wretched  marsala  called  Madeira,  on  a  cus- 
tomer. Tindall  &  Co.  had  none  of  these  tricks;  they  simply 
did  business,  and  if  they  did  it  in  a  very  severe  manner,  if 
when  they  had  sucked  their  orange  dry  they  threw  the  peel 
away,  something  cruelly,  into  the  mud,  they  still  only  did 
business  thoroughly  legitimately,  thoroughly  strictly.  Their 
customers  might  curse  them  with  terrible  bitterness,  as  the 
head  and  root  of  their  destruction,  but  they  could  never  legal- 
ly complain  of  them. 

"  Sit  down,  Mathias;  sit  down,  and  pour  yourself  out  a  cup 
of  coifee,'^  said  Trevenna,  who  was  always  j)leasant  and  cor- 
dial to  everybody,  and  gained  the  suffrages  of  all  the  lower 
classes  to  a  man.  "  I'll  run  my  eyes  through  these  jiapers; 
and  when  you  have  drunk  your  coffee,  be  able  to  account  mo 
the  recei2)ts  of  the  month.  J  know  what  they  should  be;  we'U 
see  what  they  arc. " 


42  CHANDOS. 

"You  will  find  them  correct,  sir,"  said  Mathias,  meekly; 
**  and  I  need  no  coffee,  I  thank  you." 

Neither  did  he  take  the  proffered  seat;  he  remained  stand- 
ing, his  dark  brooding  eyes  dwelling  on  the  parchment-bound 
receipt-book  open  before  him. 

The  papers  supplied  the  sauce  which  was  wanting  to  Tre- 
venna's  underdone  mutton;  as  he  glanced  through  them,  his 
humorous  lips  laughed  silently  every  now  and  then,  and  his 
light-blue,  cloudless,  dauntless  eyes  sparkled  with  a  suj)pressed 
amusement.  These  papers,  and  their  like,  brought  him  as 
keen  a  j^leasure  and  excitation  as  other  men  find  in  a  fox-hunt 
or  a  deer-drive;  it  was  the  chase,  and  without,  as  Trevenna 
would  have  said,  the  fatigue  of  dashing  over  bullfinches  or 
watching  in  sloj)py  weather  for  the  quarry;  it  was  a  hattue 
into  which  all  the  game  was  driven  ready  to  hand — through 
and  through  under  the  fire  of  the  guns.  The  beaters  had  all 
the  trouble;  the  marksmen  all  the  sport. 

"  Chittenden: — dined  with  him  at  the  Star  and  Garter  last 
Thursday:  we'll  soon  stop  those  dinners,  my  boy.  Bertie 
Brabazon — oh!  he's  going  to  be  married  to  the  Eosefleck  heir- 
ess: better  let  him  alone.  Grey  Grgeme — who  would  have 
thought  of  Ms  being  in  Queer  Street?  Jemmy  Ilaughton — 
little  fellow — barrister — got  a  bishop  for  an  uncle — bishop 
will  bleed — won't  see  him  screwed;  Church  hates  scandals — 
specially  when  it's  in  lawn  sleeves.  Talbot  O'Moore — Warely — 
Belminster —  Very  good — very  good,"  murmured  Trevenna 
over  details  of  paper  floating  about  town,  that  those  whom  it 
otherwise  concerned  would  have  rather  characterized,  on  the 
contrary,  as  very  bad.  He  meditated  a  little  vvhile  over  the 
memoranda — -amused —  meditation  that  washed  down  the 
flavorless  coarseness  of  his  breakfast;  then  he  thrust  his 
breakfast-cup  away,  pocketed  the  lists,  and  v/ent  steadily  to 
business.  i*sot  that  he  looked  grave,  dull  or  absorbed  even  in 
that;  he  was  simply  bright,  intelligent  and  alert,  as  he  was  in 
a  ducal  smoking-room;  but  Ignatius  Mathias  knew  that  those 
sagacious,  sparkling  glances  would  have  discovered  the  min- 
utest flaw  in  his  finance,  and  that  the  man  who  listened  so 
lightly,  with  a  brier-wood  pipe  between  his  lijDS,  and  his  elbows 
resting  on  the  mantel-piece,  would  have  been  down  on  him 
like  lightning  at  the  slightest  attempt  to  blind  or  to  cheat  one 
who  was  keener  even  than  that  keen  Israelite. 

"All  right,'*  said  Trevenna,  as,  having  come  to  the  com- 
pletion of  his  monthly  accounts,  the  Portuguese  closed  his 
book  and  waited  for  instructions.  Trevenna  never  wasted 
words  over  business,  rapidly  as  he  chattered  over  dinner-tables 


OHANDOS.  43 

and  in  club-rooms;  and  Ignatius  and  he  understood  each 
other,     "  You  take  care  to  keep  Tiudall  &  Co.  dark,  eh?'' 

"  Every  care,  sir." 

"  Encourage  tliem  to  think  you  Tindall  &  Co.  by  the 
charming  and  impressive  character  of  your  denial,  your  in- 
flexible austerity,  your  constant  references  to  your  principal. 
The  more  you  refer  to  him,  you  know,  the  more  they'll  be 
sure  that  he  doesn't  exist.  Everybody  takes  it  for  granted 
that  a  Jew  lies." 

There  vvas  a  cheerful,  easy  serenity  in  the  tone,  as  though 
uttering  the  pleasantest  compliment  possible,  that  made  tlie 
words  sound  all  the  more  cutting,  all  the  more  heartless;  yet 
they  were  spoken  with  such  hapj)y  indifference. 

The  Jew's  dark  and  hollow  cheek  flushed  slightly:  he  bent 
his  head. 

"  I  observe  all  your  commands,  sir," 

"Of  course  you  do,"  said  Trevenna,  carelessly.  "The 
first  you  disobey  will  set  the  police  after  Young  Hopeful.  Tell 
him  it's  no  use  to  hide:  I  know  he's  at  that  miserable  little 
Black  Forest  village  now.  He  may  just  as  well  come  and 
walk  about  London,  He  can't  escape  me.  AVhen  I  want  him, 
I  shall  put  my  hand  on  him  if  he  buries  himself  under  a  Bra- 
zilian forest;  you  know  that." 

A  change  came  over  the  unmovable,  impassive  form  of  the 
Castihan — a  change  that  shook  him  suddenly  from  head  to 
foot,  as  a  reed  trembles  in  the  wind.  What  little  blood  there 
was  in  his  dark,  worn  face  forsook  it;  a  look  of  hunted  and 
terrible  anguish  came  into  his  eyes.  With  the  long-suffering 
patience  of  his  race,  no  outburst  of  j^assion  or  of  entreaty  es- 
caped him;  but  his  lips  were  dry  as  bones  as  he  murmured, 
faintly  "  Sir,  sir,  be  merciful!  I  serve  faithfully;  I  will  give 
my  body  night  and  day  to  redeem  the  lad's  sin." 

Trevenna  laughed  lightly  as  he  blew  a  cloud  of  smoke  from 
the  little  brier- wood  pij)e;  but  his  glance  rested  meaningly  on 
the  Jew's,  looking  him  through. 

"That's  the  compact.  Keep  it,  and  I  don't  touch  the 
boy,"  he  said,  curtly. 

"  You  are  very  good,  sir, " 

There  was  no  hypocrisy  here;  acute,  parsimonious,  keen  to 
cunning,  sagacious  to  unscrupulousness  as  Ignatius  Mathias 
might  be  in  commercial  transactions,  here  he  was  grateful  and 
gentle,  with  a  humility  that  made  him  the  bond-slave  of  this 
drawing-room  wit,  this  club  amuse,  this  man-about-town,  and 
a  terriWe  supplicating  fear  mingled  v/ith  the  breathless  thank- 


44  CHANDOS. 

fulness  with  which  he  looked  at  a  benefactor  whom  most  men 
would  have  been  tempted  to  hold  as  task-master. 

"  You  may  go  now,  Mathias/'  said  Treveuna,  with  a  nod. 
"  You  know  what  to  do  in  all  cases;  and  don^t  forget  to  put 
tlie  screw  on  to  Fotheriugay  at  once.  The  next  time  come  a 
little  earlier — seven  or  so;  if  I'm  in  bed,  I'll  see  you.  It's 
rather  dangerous  when  people  are  about;  your  visits  might  get 
blown  on.  All  my  jjeople — the  dainty  gentlemen — are  never 
up  till  noonday,  it's  true;  but  their  servants  might  be  about. 
At  all  events,  'safe  bind,  safe  find.'  They  might  wonder 
what  I  borrowed  money  of  you  for;  it  would  hurt  my  char- 
acter. " 

He  laughed  gayly  and  merrily  over  the  words;  they  tickled 
his  fancy.  The  Jew  bowed  reverentially  to  him,  gathered  up 
his  papers,  and  left  the  room. 

"  The  best  organizations  are  sure  to  have  a  flaw,*'  thought 
Trevenna,  leaning  there  still  with  his  elbows  on  the  mantel- 
piece, smoking  meditatively.  *'  ISTow  there  is  that  Jew;  mar- 
velous clever  fellow,  shrewd,  got  head  enough  to  be  a  finance- 
minister;  grind  a  man  as  well  as  anybody  can;  take  you  in 
most  neatly;  a  magnificent  machine  altogether  for  cheating, 
and  hard  as  a  flint;  and  yet  that  Jew's  such  a  fool  over  his 
worthless  young  rascal  of  a  son  that  you  can  turn  him  round 
your  finger  through  it.  There  he's  as  soft  as  an  idiot  and  as 
blind  as  a  bat.  Incomprehensible  that  a  man  can  let  such 
trash  creep  into  him!  It's  very  odd,  men  have  so  many  weak- 
nesses; I  don't  think  I've  got  one." 

He  had  one;  but,  like  most  men,  he  did  not  imagine  it  as 
weakness,  and  in  truth  it  was  not  a  very  tender  one,  though  it 
was  very  dominant. 

"  Not  at  home  to  all  the  dukes  in  the  world,  my  dear,  till 
twelve,"  said  he,  as  the  maid-servant  of  his  lodgings  (he  kept 
no  man-servant  of  any  kind,  except  a  miniature  tiger  to 
hang  on  behind  his  tilbury)  cleared  away  the  breakfast-service. 
That  done,  Trevenna  sat  down  to  a  table  strewn  with  blue- 
books,  books  on  political  economy,  books  on  population  and 
taxation,  books  on  government,  books  English,  French,  Ger- 
man and  American,  all  tending  to  the  same  direction  of  study. 
He  certainly  did  not  need  to  ponder  over  the  statistics  of  na- 
tions to  conduct  his  affairs  with  Ignatius  Mathias,  however  in- 
tricate they  were,  and  he  had  received  every  benefit  that  a 
first-rate  education  can  confer.  But  he  was  one  of  those  wise- 
men  who  remember  that  the  longest  and  most  learned  life, 
spent  aright,  never  ceases  to  learn  till  its  last  breath  is  drawn; 
and,  moreover,  far  atvay  in  limitless  perspective  in  Trevenna's 


CHANDOS.  45 

ambitions  lay  an  arena  where  the  victory  is  not  to  the  strong, 
nor  the  race  to  the  swift,  but  to  the  ablest  tactician  in  such 
j-are  instances  as  it  departs  from  the  hereditary  winners — an 
arena  where  adventurers  are  excluded  as  iifcterly  as  men  of  the 
foreign  states,  though  they  were  princes,  were  excluded  from 
the  games  of  Elis.  So  for  three  hours  and  a  half  Trevenna, 
that  idle,  gossiping  flaneur,  that  town-jester  whom  the  town 
called  Chandos's  Chicot,  plunged  himself  deep  into  political 
subtleties,  and  the  science  of  statecraft,  and  the  close  logic  of 
finance,  bringing  to  their  problems  a  head  which  grew  only 
clearer  the  tougher  the  problem  it  clinched,  the  deeper  the 
ground  it  explored.  Hard  study  was  as  thorough  a  revelry  to 
Trevenna  as  plunging  into  the  cool,  living  water  is  to  a  great 
swimmer.  Like  the  swimmer,  his  heart  beat  joyously  as  he 
dived  only  to  rise  again  the  fresher  and  the  bolder.  Like  the 
swimmer,  his  soul  rose  triumphant  as  he  felt  and  he  measured 
his  strength. 
Twelve  struck. 

He,  who  was  as  punctual  as  if  he  were  made  by  clock-work, 
got  up,  changed  his  dress  in  ten  minutes,  and  rang  for  his  til-' 
bury  to  be  brought  round.  It  came,  as  elegant  a  thing  as  ever 
went  round  th3  park  at  six  on  a  June  day,  with  a  chestnut 
mare  in  it,  pure  bred,  who  would  do  twelve  miles  in  five-aud- 
forty  minutes,  if  needed.  Both  the  tilbury  and  the  chestnut 
mare  had  been  given  him  by  Chandos,  who  knew  that  a  man 
may  live  in  what  den  he  jjleases,  but  that  he  must  drive  a  good 
thing  or  be  dropped  hj  the  mo ndes  to-morrow.  "  I  will  in- 
demnify myself  for  my  ascetic  chop  in  Park  Lane,  but  I  will 
see  how  the  wind  is  blowing  for  Sir  Galahad  at  the  Corner 
first,"  thought  Trevenna;  and  thither  he  went. 

The  midday  betting  was  eager,  for  it  was  within  a  month  of 
the  Ascot  week.  "  The  gentlemen  "  were  barely  out  3'et;  but 
the  book-makers  were  mustered  in  full  force,  from  the  small 
speculators,  who  usually  did  a  little  quiet  business  only  in 
trotting-matches  and  quiet  handicaps,  to  the  great  gamblers 
of  the  ring,  who  took  noblemen's  odds  in  thousands,  and  net- 
ted as  much  in  lucky  hits  as  those  other  great  gamblers  of  the 
^Change  and  the  Bourse  whom  a  world  that  frowns  on  the 
Heath  smiles  on  so  benignly  when  they  are  successful.  All 
the  vast  genus,  flashy,  slangy,  sharp  as  needles,  with  a  lan- 
guage of  their  own,  a  literature  of  their  own,  a  world  of  their 
own,  whom  marquises  and  earls  are  eagerly  familiar  with  in 
the  leveling  atmosphere  of  the  Lawn  and  the  Downs,  and  give 
a  distant  frigid  nod  to,  at  the  uttermost,  if  they  pass  them  in 
Piccadilly,  were  there;  and  amidst  them,  in  the  terrific  babel 


46  CHANDOS. 

of  raised  voices,  Trevenna  pushed  his  way — as  he  2)ushed  it 
everywliere. 

Sir  Galahad  was  higher  than  ever  in  ijubhc  favor.  All  the 
shrewdest  men  were  afraid  to  touch  him.  The  Clareucieux 
stables  had  been  famous  since  the  Regency.  Trevenna  bet 
but  very  little  usually,  he  was  known  to  have  but  little  money 
to  risk;  but  men  were  eager  to  have  his  opinion  of  the  favor- 
ite. None  had  such  opportunities  of  telling  to  a  nicety  the 
points,  powers,  stay,  and  jxice  of  the  Clarencieux  horse  in  its 
prime.  He  gave  the  opinion  frankly  enough.  Sir  Galahad 
was  the  finest  horse  of  the  year,  and  to  his  mind  would  all 
but  walk  over  the  course.  The  opinion  went  for  a  great  deal, 
especially  from  one  who  was  a  master  of  stable-science  but 
who  was  no  betting  man  himself.  He  had  laid  heavy  bets  in 
Chandos's  name,  backing  the  favorite  for  considerable  sums 
so  long  as  any  could  be  found  rash  enough  to  take  them. 

There  was  one  little,  spare,  red-wigged,  foxy,  quiet  man 
who  offered  bets  on  a  chestnut — Diadem,  an  outsider,  un- 
known and  unnoticed,  generally  looked  on  by  the  touts  as  fid- 
dle-headed and  weedy.  The  colt  had  trained  in  an  obscure 
stable  northward,  and  was  a  '*  colt  "  only  to  his  breeders  and 
owners  in  familiar  parlance,  having  been  known  as  a  Plater  in 
northern  autumn-meetings,  though  having  earned  no  sort  of 
renown  anywhere. 

When  Trevenna  left  Tattersall's,  this  httle  leg,  a  worn-out, 
shattered  creature,  who  had  ruined  himself  over  one  St.  Leger 
and  collapsed  under  it,  was  walking  slowly  out  in  the  sun, 
having  backed  nothing  except  this  ill-conditioned  colt.  Tre- 
venna paused  a  second  by  him. 

"  Drop  Diadem's  name,  or  they'll  be  smelling  a  rat.  Take 
the  field  against  the  favorite  with  any  fools  you  like,  as  widely 
as  you  can. " 

The  words  were  so  rapidly  uttered  that  to  passers  Trevenna 
seemed  to  have  merely  stopped  a  second  to  strike  a  fusee, 
without  noticing  the  little,  broken-down  leg. 

"  Wonderfully  dark  we  have  kept  that  chestnut.  ISTot  a 
soul  has  ever  suspected  the  colt.  He's  so  ugly!  that's  the 
treasure  of  him;  and  we've  trained  him  so  close,  and  roped 
him  so  cleverly,  that  the  sharpest  tout  that  ever  lay  in  a  ditch 
all  night  to  catch  a  morning  gallop  doesn't  guess  what  that 
precious  awkward-looking  brute  can  do,"  thought  Trevenna, 
?fi  he  got  into  his  tilbury. 

And  he  went  to  eat  a  second  breakfast  with  Chandos. 


CHANDOS.  47 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   QUEEN"  OE  LILIES. 

Lady  Valencia  St.  Albans  stood  beside  one  of  the 
palms  in  the  conservatory  of  her  sister  Lady  Chesterton's 
house.  It  was  the  day  of  the  Drawing-Room;  she  waited  for 
her  sister,  with  her  white  train  careless!}'' caught  over  one  arm, 
and  a  shower  of  lace  and  silk  falling  to  the  g:round  and  trail- 
ing there  in  a  perfumy  billowy  cloud.  She  was  a  picture  per- 
fect as  the  eye  could  ask  or  the  heart  conceive  in  the  glowing 
colors  of  the  blossoms  round;  and  a  paiuter  would  have  given 
her  to  his  canvas  as  the  Ordella  or  the  Evadne  of  Fletcher's 
dramas  in  all  their  sweet  and  delicate  grace,  or,  if  passion 
could  pass  over  those  luminous,  thoughtful  eyes,  as  Vittoria 
Corrombona  in  her  royal  and  imperious  beauty. 

Passion  had  never  troubled  their  stillness  as  yet.  Some 
touch  of  calamity  had  indeed  cast  its  shadow  on  her;  the  pres- 
sure of  improvidence  and  of  impoverishment  had  sent  her  fa- 
ther to  the  Roman  air  that  she  had  breathed  so  long,  and  his 
decease  had  left  her,  for  an  earFs  daughter,  almost  penniless, 
while  his  title  and  estates  had  passed  away  to  a  distant  heir 
male.  Her  poverty  was  bitter,  terribly  bitter,  to  the  Queen  of 
Lilies,  daughter  of  the  once  splendid  house  of  Ivors.  She  was 
little  better  than  dependent  on  the  generosity  of  her  brother- 
in-law.  Lord  Chesterton,  and  the  nature  in  her  was  born  for 
the  magnificence  of  dominion,  the  consciousness  of  inalienable 
power. 

She  stood  now  under  the  curled,  hanging  leaves  of  the 
palms,  their  pale  Eastern  green  contrasting,  as  though  she 
had  been  posed  there  by  a  painter's  skill,  with  the  exquisite 
coloring  of  her  own  beauty,  and  the  snowy,  trailing  robes  that 
fell  about  her.  Of  that  beauty  she  was  too  proud  to  be  vain; 
she  was  simply  conscious  of  it  as  an  empress  is  conscious  of 
the  extent  of  the  sway  of  her  scepter. 

"We're  rather  early,"  said  her  sister,  a  baroness,  as  she 
entered  the  conservatory — a  liandsome  brunette  some  years  her 
senior,  and  very  unlike  her;  a  brusque,  abrupt,  showy  woman; 
ambitious  and  disappointed,  keenly  disappointed  because  a  dis- 
tant cousin  had  stepped  between  the  Ivors  earldom  and  her 
own  young  son.  "  Who  sent  you  those  flowers?  Clydesmore? 
Admirable  person,  ver^'-  admirable;   great  pity  he's  such  a 


«5  CHANDOS. 

bore.  How  well  you  look,  Valencia!  On  ne  pouvait  m'leuak 
Chaudos  will  be  at;  the  palace,  you  know,  this  morning,  ■" 

"  Are  you  surer" 

There  was  a  glance  of  interest  from  the  Lily  Queen's  deep, 
serene  eyes. 

"  Perfectly.  He  is  everywhere.  It  is  the  most  difficuU 
thing  to  secure  his  presence  at  anytime.  He  is  so  fastidious, 
too!  He  has  sent  me  a  most  courtly  note,  however.  I  wrote 
to  say  you  had  just  arrived  from  Rome,  and  that  I  woult] 
bring  you  with  me  to  his  ball  to-night;  and  there  is  his  an^ 
swer.     It  is  an  immense  deal  from  liim  !" 

Lady  Valencia  took  the  white,  scented  j)aper  her  sister 
tossed  to  her,  and  a  faint,  gratified  flush  passed  over  the  pure 
fairness  of  her  face;  her  lips  parted  with  a  slight  smile.  She 
had  heard  so  much  of  the  writer — of  his  fame,  of  his  con^ 
quests,  of  his  homage  to  beauty,  of  his  omnipotence  in  fashion. 

"  He  is  very  rich,  is  he  not?"  she  said,  while  her  gaze  still 
rested  on  the  superscription  of  his  name. 

"Eich!"  said  Lady  Chesterton.  *' A  thousand  men  are 
rich;  money's  made  so  fast  in  these  days.  Chandos  is  very 
much  more  than  only  rich.  He  could  make  us  all  eat  acorns 
and  drink  cider,  if  he  chose  to  set  the  fashion  of  it.  He  rules 
the  ton  entirely,  and  lives  far  more  en  roi  than  some  royalties 
we  know.'' 

"  Yes;  I  heard  that  in  Rome.  Men  spoke  of  being  '  frienda 
with  Chandos,'  as  they  might  speak  of  being  invited  to  the 
court. ' ' 

"  Chandos  gives  much  greater  fashion  than  the  palace  even 
confers.  Bores  and  parvenues  go  there,  but  they  never  visit 
him,"  responded  Lady  Chesterton,  with  an  impressive  ac- 
centuation almost  thrilling.  "  Isothing  will  ever  make  him 
marry,  you  know.  He  would  hold  it  in  absolute  horror.  Tiie 
Princess  Marie  of  Albe  is  terribly  in  love  with  him — almost 
dying,  they  say;  very  beautiful  creature  she  is,  too,  and  woukl 
bring  a  magnificent  dower." 

The  Lily  Queen  smiled  slightly,  her  thoughtful,  half- 
haughty  smile.  She  kne'-v,  as  though  they  were  uttered 
aloud,  the  motives  of  her  sister's  little  detour  into  this  little 
sketch  of  sentiment. 

"  With  so  much  distinction,  he  could  be  raised  to  the  peer- 
age any  day,  of  course?"  she  inquired,  half  absently,  drawing 
to  her  the  deep  j^urple  bells  of  an  Oriental  plant.  She  de- 
clined to  pursue  the  more  poetic  track,  yet  she  looked  a  poem 
herself. 

"  Raised  I"  echoed  her  si-ster.     "  My  dear,  he  would  call  it 


CHANDOS.  49 

anything  but  raised.  The  Cliandos  were  Marquises  of  Claren- 
cieux,  you  remember,  until  the  title  was  attaindered  in  the 
Forty-five.  Pliilip  Chandos — the  premier — could  have  had  it 
restored  at  any  time,  of  course;  but  he  invariably  declined. 
Ernest  Chandos  is  like  his  father;  he  would  not  accept  a  peer- 
age.'' 

"  Not  a  new  one.     But  he  might  revive  his  own.*' 

"  He  might,  of  course;  nothing  would  be  refused  to  him; 
they  would  be  glad  to  have  him  in  the  Lords.  But  he  has 
often  replied  that,  like  his  father,  he  declines  it.  He  has 
some  peculiar  notions,  you  know;  there  has  been  some  oath  or 
other  taken  in  the  family,  I  believe,  about  it — great  nonsense, 
of  course — utter  quixotism.  But  men  of  genius  are  quixotic: 
it  never  does  to  contradict  them.  They  are  like  that  mare  of 
mine.  Million:  give  them  their  head  and  they  will  be  sweet- 
tempered  enough — take  you  over  some  very  queer  places  some- 
times, to  be  sure,  but  still  tolerably  even  goers;  but  once  give 
them  a  check,  they  rear  and  throw  you  directly.  I  never  dis- 
agree with  authors,  any  more  than  with  maniacs." 

With  which  expression  of  her  compassionate  consideration 
for  genius.  Lady  Chesterton,  who  was  very  well  known  across 
the  grass  countries  and  with  the  buck-hounds,  shook  out  her 
violet  velvets  and  black  Spanish  laces,  well  content  with  the 
warning  she  had  adroitly  conveyed  to  her  sister  never  to  dis- 
agree with  the  eminent  leader  of  society,  whom  women  idohzed 
as  they  idolized  Jermyn  and  Grammont  in  the  splendid  days 
of  Hampton  Court. 

The  Queen  of  Lilies  did  not  answer;  she  stood  silent,  look- 
ing still  at  the  note  she  held,  as  though  the  paper  could  tell 
her  of  its  writer,  while  her  other  hand  ruthlessly  drew  the 
purple  bells  of  the  flower  down  in  a  shower  at  her  feet. 

'"  Is  he  so  much  spoiled,  then?  Can  he  not  bear  contra- 
diction?" she  said,  at  length. 

"  My  dear,  he  has  never  tried  it,"  retorted  her  sister,  with 
some  petulance.  "  Bear  it!  of  course  he  would  bear  it:  he  is 
the  first  gentleman  in  Europe:  but  the  woman  who  teased  him 
with  it  would  never  draw  him  to  her  again.  He  is  so  used  to 
being  followed,  he  would  not  know  what  it  was  to  be  opposed. 
He  is  the  most  graceful,  the  most  brilliant,  the  most  generous 
person  in  the  world:  at  the  same  time,  he  is  the  most  difficult 
to  2^1  ease.  Guess,  yourself,  whether  a  man  whose  ideal  is 
'  Lucrece  '  is  very  likely  to  be  easily  enslaved.  But  it  is  time 
to  go." 

And,  having  cast  that  arrow  to  hit  her  sister's  vanity  or 
pique  her  pride,  as  it  might  happen.  Lady  Chesterton  floated 


50  CHANDOS. 

out  of  the  drawing-rooms,  followed  by  the  Lily  Queen,  ^lao 
laid  the  note  down  with  a  lingering,  farewell  glance  at  it  as 
she  swept  away.  She  had  heard  much  of  its  writer  some  years 
past  iu  Jlome,  although  they  had  never  met;  and  she  had  seen 
his  eyes  give  her  an  eloquent  mute  homage  the  night  before — 
eyes  that  it  was  said  looked  on  no  woman  without  awakening 
love. 

"  How  beautiful  his  face  isl^'  she  thought,  recalling  the 
night  just  passed,  and  that  momentary  glance  of  one  long 
famous  to  her  by  reputation.  "  Lord  Clarencieux — Marquis 
of  Clarencieux — it  is  a  fine  title. '* 

"  Going  to  the  Drawiug-Eoom?"  said  Trevenna,  entering  one 
of  the  morning-rooms  in  Park  Lane  to  take  his  meditated 
second  breakfast.  Chandos  was  taking  his  first,  the  chamber 
scented  and  shaded,  and  cooled  wiih  rose  water,  and  his  attend- 
ants, Georgian  and  Circassian  girls,  he  had  bought  in  the  East 
and  appointed  to  his  household.  The  world  had  been  a  little 
scandalized  at  those  lovely  slaves,  but  Chandos  had  soon 
converted  his  friends  to  his  own  views  regarding  them.  "  Why 
have  men  to  wait  on  yon,''  he  had  argued,  "  v/hen  you  can 
have  women — soft  of  foot,  soft  of  voice,  and  charming  to  look 
at?  To  take  your  chocolate  from  James  or  Adolphe  is  no 
gratification  at  all;  to  take  it  from  Leila  or  Zelma  is  a  great 
one.''  And  his  pretty  Easterns  were  certainly  irresistible  liv- 
ing proofs  of  the  force  of  his  arguments.  They  were  flutter- 
ing about  him  now  with  silver  trays  of  coffee,  sweetmeats, 
liqueurs,  and  fruit,  dressed  in  tlieir  own  Oriental  costume,  and 
serving  him  with  most  loving  obedience.  A  French  duke  and 
two  or  three  Guardsmen  were  breakfasting  with  him,  playing 
at  lansquenet  at  noon,  from  which  they  had  just  risen.  Men 
■were  very  fond  of  coming  to  take  a  cup  of  chocolate  from 
those  charming  young  odalisques. 

"  Cards  at  noon,  Chandos?"  cried  Trevenna,  as  he  sauntered 
into  the  room,  regardless  alike  of  the  presence  of  fashionable 
men  who  looked  coldly  on  him,  and  of  the  charms  of  the 
Turkish  attendants.  "  Fy!  fy!  The  only  legitimate  gaming 
before  dinner  is  the  sanctioned  and  sanctified  swindling  done 
upon  'Change." 

"  Business  is  holier  than  pleasure,  I  suppose,"  laughed 
Chandos.  "  Business  ruins  a  host  of  others;  pleasure  only 
ruins  yourself:  of  course  the  v/orld  legitimates  the  first.  How 
are  you  to-day?  Yes,  I  am  going  to  the  Drawing-Eoom;  I  am 
going  to  see  the  Queen  of  Lilies.  I  will  endure  the  crush  and 
ennui  of  St.  James's  for  her.  Take  something  to  eat,  Tre« 
vcnna?" 


CHANDOS.  51 

"  All  too  light  and  too  late  for  me.  I'm  a  John  Bull,"  said 
Trevenna,  taking  a  glass  of  ciiragoa,  nevertheless,  with  some 
Strasbourg  pate.  "  Have  you  heard  the  last  news  of  Lady 
Carallynne?" 

"  No.     Gone  off  with  poor  Bodon?" 

'*  Precisely.  Went  olf  with  him  from  Lillingstone  House 
last  night.  Never  missed  till  just  now.  Carallynne's  started 
in  pursuit,  swearing  to  shoot  poor  Bo  dead.  Dare  say  he  will, 
too:  '  bon  sang  ue  jjeut  meutir;'  it  must  break  the  criminal 
law  rather  than  break  its  word. " 

"  Hard  upon  Bo,"  murmured  Cosmo  Grenvil  of  the  Cold- 
streams.  "  She  made  such  fast  running  on  him,  and  a  fellow 
can't  always  say  no. " 

*'  Well,  the  mischief's  her  mother's  fault;  she  made  her 
marry  a  man  she  hated,"  said  Chandos,  drawing  one  of  the 
bright  braids  of  the  Circassian  near  him  through  his  hand. 
'Poor  Carl!  he  is  quite  a  V antique:  that  sort  of  revenge  has 
gone  out  with  hair-powder,  highwaymen,  patches  and  cock- 
fighting.  " 

"  Beauty  of  a  commercial  age:  we  can  turn  damaged  honor 
and  broken  carriage-panels  into  money,  nowadays,"  said  Tre- 
venna.  "  Carallynne's  rococo.  Liberty  all,  say  L  If  my 
wife  runs  away  with  a  penniless  hussar,  why  the  deuce  am  I 
to  make  a  fuss  about  it?  I  think  /  should  be  the  gainer  far 
and  away." 

"  Noblesse  oblige,"  said  Grenvil,  softly,  with  a  glance  up 
from  under  his  lashes,  that  were  silky  and  curly  as  La  Vi- 
varol's.  "  Carl  don't  like  his  name  stained;  Old  World 
prejudice;  great  bosh,  of  course,  and  Mr.  Treveuna  can't  un- 
derstand the  weakness — very  naturally. " 

The  softness  of  -the  thrust  gave  it  a  keener  stab.  For  a 
momeut  the  light  leaped  into  Trevenna's  bright  eyes  with  a 
passionate  glitter,  but  it  was  instantaneously  suppressed.  He 
recovered  his  gay  good  humor. 

"  Mr.  Trevenna  doesn't  understand  it.  Lord  Cosmo.  AVhy 
standing  up  to  have  an  ounce  of  lead  shot  into  you  across  a 
handkerchief  should  be  considered  to  atone  to  you  for  another 
man's  having  the  amusement  of  making  love  to  your  property, 
is  beyond  my  practical  comprehension.  If  I  were  a  bellicose 
fellow,  now,  I  should  call  you  out  for  that  pretty  speech." 

"  I  only  go  out  witli  my  equals,"  yawned  the  handsome 
Guardsman,  indolently  turning  to  resume  his  iiirtation  in 
Turkish  with  a  Georgian. 

"  Where  do  you  ever  find  them — for  insolence?"  said  Tre- 
venna, tranquilly. 


53  CHANDOS. 

"  Clearly  hit,  Cos/'  laughed  Chaiidos,  to  arrest  whatevei 
sharper  words  might  have  ensued.  ''  So  Lady  Car  has  gone 
oif  at  last!  I  declare,  Treveiiiia,  yon  are  the  most  industrious 
cJiiJfonnicr  for  collecting  naughty  stories  that  ever  existed. 
You  must  come  across  some  very  dirty  tatters  sometimes.  I 
do  believe  you  know  everything  half  an  hour  before  it  hap- 
pens.'^ 

"Scandals  are  like  dandelion-seeds,"  said  Trevenna,  with 
the  brevity  of  an  Ecclesiasticus.  "  A  breath  scatters  them  to 
the  four  winds  of  heaven;  but  they  are  arrow-headed,  and 
stick  where  they  fall,  and  bring  forth  and  multiply  fourfold." 

"  And  scandals  and  dandelions  are  both  only  weeds  that  are 
relished  by  nothing  but  donkeys." 

"  You  know  nothing  at  all  about  either.  You  don't  want 
scandal  for  your  pastime,  nor  taraxacum  for  your  liver;  but 
when  you  are  septuagenarian,  dyspei^tic,  and  bored,  you'll  be 
glad  of  the  assistance  of  both." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  what  unimaginable  horrors  you  suggest! 
Whenever  I  feel  the  days  of  darkness  coming,  I  shall  gently 
retire  from  existence  in  a  warm  bath,  or  breathe  in  chloroform 
from  a  bouquet  of  heliotrope.  The  world  is  a  very  pleasant 
club;  but,  if  once  it  gets  dull,  take  your  name  off  the  books. 
Nothing  easier;  and  your  friends  won't  dine  the  worse." 

"  Eather  the  better,  if  your  suicide  is  piquant.  Something 
to  censure,  flavors  your  curry  better  than  all  the  cayenne. 
We  never  enjoy  our  entre-mets  so  thoroughly  as  when  we  mur- 
mur over  it, '  Very  sad!  terribly  wrong!'  Apropos  of  censure, 
even  the  '  Ilypercritic '  won't  censure  you:  there  are  three 
colums  of  superb  laudation  to  '  Lucrece  '." 

"  Never  read  critiques,  my  dear  Trevenna. 

"  '  Such  is  our  pride,  our  folly,  or  our  cru, 
That  only  those  who  can  not  write  review!' 

1  am  sorry  to  hear  they  praise  me.  I  fear,  after  all,  then,  1 
must  write  very  badly.  Eeviewers  puff  bad  books,  as  ladies 
praise  plain  women." 

"  To  show  their  own  superiority:  very  likely.  However, 
whether  you  please  it  or  not,  Jim  Josetyn  is  so  lavish  of  his 
milk  and  honey  that  the  '  Hypercritic  '  will  have  to  atone  for 
his  weakness  by  chopping  up  novels  in  vinegar  all  the  rest  of 
the  season.  I  am  sure  he  will  expect  to  dine  with  you  at 
Richmond." 

"Indeed!  Then  he  may  continue  to — expect  it.  I  never 
buy  a  Boswell  with  a  loiiillabaisse,  nor  play  Maecenas  by  giv* 


CHANDOS.  53 

ing  a  matelote,     Praiso  hired  with  a  piite !  what  a  droll  state 
of  literature!" 

"  Not  at  all.  Everything's  bought  and  sold,  from  the  dust 
of  the  cinder-heaps  to  the  favor  of  Heaven — which  last  little 
trifle  is  bid  for  with  all  sorts  of  things,  from  a  piece  of  j^late 
for  the  rector,  to  a  new  church  for  St.  Paul,  it  being  con- 
sidered that  the  Creator  of  the  universe  is  peculiarly  gratified 
by  small  pepper-pots  ui  silver,  and  big  pepper-pots  in  stucco, 
as  propitiatory  and  dedicatory  offerings.  Pooh!  everybody's 
bribed.  The  only  blunder  ever  made  is  in  the  bribe  not  being 
suited  to  the  recipient.'* 

"  You  have  suffered  from  that?" 

Trevenna,  the  imperturbable,  laughed,  as  Grenvil  dealt  him 
that  hit  a  la  Talleyrand,  murmuring  the  question  in  his  silkiest, 
sleepiest  tone.  The  Guardsman  was  a  dead  foe  to  the  Ad- 
venturer. 

"  I  wish  I  had.  Lord  Cosmo.  I  should  like  to  be  bribed 
right  and  left.  I  would  show  I  wais  a  '  man  of  position.' 
When  the  world  slips  douceurs  into  your  pocket,  things  are 
going  very  well  with  you.  I  can't  fancy  a  more  conclusive 
proof  of  your  success  than  a  host  of  bribers  trying  to  buy  you. 
But,  to  be  sure,  the  aristocratic  prejudice  is  in  favor  of  owing 
money,  not  of  making  it." 

Which  hit  the  ball  back  again  to  his  adversary,  Cos  Grenvil 
being  in  debt  for  everything,  from  the  thousands  with  which 
he  had  paid  his  Spring  Meeting  losses,  to  the  fifty-guinea  dress- 
ing-box he  had  bought  for  a  pretty  rosiere  the  day  before,  as 
he  brought  her  over  from  Paris. 

"Let  that  fellow  alone,  Cos, "  laughed  Chandos,  to  avert 
the  stormy  element  which  seemed  to  threaten  the  serenity  of 
his  breakfast-part3\  "  Trevenna  will  beat  us  all  with  his 
tongue,  if  we  tempt  him  to  try  conclusions.  He  should  be  a 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer  or  a  cheap  John;  I  am  not  quite 
clear  which  as  yet." 

"  Identically  the  same  things!"  cried  Trevenna.  "  The 
only  difference  is  the  scale  they  are  on;  one  talks  from  the 
bench,  and  the  other  from  the  benches;  one  cheajDcns  tins,  and 
the  other  cheapens  taxes;  one  has  a  salve  for  an  incurable 
disease,  the  other  a  salve  for  the  national  debt;  one  rounds  his 
periods  to  put  off  a  watch  that  won't  go,  and  the  other  to 
cover  a  deficit  that  won't  close;  but  they  radically  drive  the 
same  trade,  and  both  are  successful  if  the  spavined  mare  trots 
out  looking  sound,  and  the  people  pay  up.  '  Look  what  I  save 
you,'  cry  Cheap  John  and  chancellor;  and  while  they  shout 
their  economics,  they  pocket  their  shillings.     Ah,  if  I  were 


54  CHANDOS. 

sure  I  could  bamboozle  a  village,  I  should  know  I  was  qualified 
to  make  up  a  budget." 

"And  my  belief  is  you  could  do  either  or  both,"  laughed 
Chandos,  as  he  rose  with  a  farewell  caress  of  his  hand  to  the 
bright  braids  of  gazelle-eyed  Leila.  "  Are  you  all  going?  To 
be  sure — the  Drawiug-Room,  I  had  forgotten  it:  we  shall  be 
late  as  it  is.  Au  revoir,  then,  till  we  meet  in  a  crush.  Noth- 
ing would  take  me  to  that  hottest,  dullest,  drowsiest,  frowsiest, 
and  leastly  courtly  of  courts,  if  it  were  not  for  our  lovely — ■ 
what  is  her  name — Queen  of  the  Lilies." 

And  Chandos,  who  glittered  at  the  Tuileries  and  at  Vienna 
as  magnificently  as  Villiers  ever  had  done  before  him,  and 
who  had  a  court  of  his  own  to  which  no  courts  could  give 
splendor,  went  to  dress  for  St.  James's  as  his  guests  left  the 
chamber,  pausing  a  moment  himself  beside  Trevenna. 

"  Are  you  coming?" 

"I?  No!  Mr.  John  Trevenna  is  not  an  elegant  name  for 
a  court-list.  I  would  look  very  bourgeois  and  bare  beside  the 
patrician  stateliness  of  Chandos  of  Clarencieux." 

For  a  moment  he  spoke  almost  with  a  snarl,  the  genuine, 
bright  serenity  of  his  mirthful  good  temper  failing  for  an  in- 
stant. Surprised,  Chandos  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder  and 
looked  at  bim. 

"Nonsense!  what  is  the  matter  with  your  name?  It  is  a 
very  good  one,  and  I  would  bet  much  that  you  will  one  day 
make  it  a  known  one.  Why  should  you  not  attend  at  the 
palace  to-day?     I  presented  you  years  ago." 

"  Yes,  you  did,  mon  prince,"  laughed  Trevenna,  whose  ill 
humor  could  not  last  louger  than  twenty  seconds.  "  You  took 
me  out  of  prison,  and  you  introduced  me  to  court — what  an 
antithesis!  No!  I  don't  want  to  come.  I  always  feel  so  dread- 
fully like  a  butler  in  silk  stockings  and  tights;  and  I  don't  care 
about  creeping  in  at  the  tail  of  a  list  in  the  morning  papers. 
It's  not  elevating  to  your  vanity  to  briug  up  the  rear,  like  the 
spiders  in  a  cbild's  jjrocession  of  Noah's  Ark  animals." 

Chandos  laughed. 

"  Well,  as  you  like;  amuse  yourself  with  my  pretty  Easterns, 
then — though,  on  my  word,  Trevenna,  you  never  seem  to 
know  whether  a  woman's  handsome  or  not." 

"  No!  I  never  cared  much  about  women." 

Chandos  lifted  his  eyes  in  unutterable  pity  and  amazement. 

"  What  you  lose!  Good  heavens!  that  a  man  can  live  so 
dead  to  all  the  salt  of  this  life!  Adieu  for  an  hour  or  two, 
then:  I  shall  be  very  late. 

"  Poor  fellow!    lie  has  brains  enough  to  be  premier,  and 


CHANDOS.  55 

he  is  nothing  but  a  penniless  mau-on-the-town/'  he  thought, 
as  he  entered  his  dressing-room  and  put  himself  in  the  hands 
of  his  body-servants  to  dress  for  the  court.  "  A  better  temper 
never  breathed,  but  it  sometimes  galls  him,  1  dare  say,  not  to 
occupy  a  higher  place.  I  have  been  too  selfish  about  him: 
giving  him  money  and  giving  him  dinners  is  not  enough  to 
deal  fairly  by  him:  he  ought  to  be  put  forward.  I  will  try 
and  get  him  into  the  House.  I  could  have  a  pocket-borough 
for  him  from  some  of  them;  and  he  could  be  trusted  to  make 
his  own  way  there.  His  style  would  suit  St.  Stephen's;  he 
would  always  be  pungent,  and  never  be  metaphorical;  he  is 
too  good  a  scholar  to  offend  their  taste,  and  too  shrewd  a 
tactician  to  alarm  them  with  genius." 

And,  revolving  plans  for  the  welfare  and  advancement  of 
his  ficlus  Achates,  Chandos  dressed  and  went  down  to  his  car- 
riage, with  its  cream-and-silver  liveries,  its  four  grays  ridden 
by  jockeys,  and  its  fracas  of  fretting  horses  and  of  dashing 
outriders.  Trevenna  looked  out  of  one  of  the  windows,  pro- 
fanely regardless  of  the  beauty  of  the  Circassians  that  had 
been  left  in  legacy  to  him,  and  watched  the  gay  elegance  of 
the  equipage  as  it  swept  away. 

"Go  to  the  palace,  my  brilliant  courtier,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, while  his  teeth  set  like  the  teeth  of  a  bulldog — strong, 
fine,  white  teeth,  that  clinched  close.  "  Men  as  graceful  and 
as  glittering  even  as  you  went  by  the  dozens  to  Versailles,  in 
their  lace  and  their  diamonds,  to  end  their  days  behind  the 
bars  of  La  Force  or  on  the  red  throne  of  the  guillotine.  My 
dainty  gentlemen,  my  gallant  aristocrats,  my  gilded  butter- 
flies! Rira  Men  qui  rira  le  dernier.  Do  you  think  I  amuse 
you  all  now  not  to  use  you  all  by  and  by?  We're  not  at  the 
end.  of  the  comedy  yet.  I  am  your  Triboulet,  your  Chicot, 
whose  wit  must  never  tire  and  whose  blood  must  never  boil; 
but  I  may  outwit  you  yet  under  the  cap  and  bells.  '  La 
vengeance  est  hoiteuse;  eJle  vient  a  j^as  lents;  mats — elle  vient !'  ■ 
And  what  a  comfort  that  is!"  '' 

He  stood  looking  out  still  as  the  carriage  swept  out  of  sight, 
the  dust  scattered  in  a  cloud  behind  it  as  the  outriders  dashed 
after  it  like  a  king's  guard.  This  was  the  solitary  weakness 
in  his  virile  and  energetic  nature — a  nature  otherwise  strong 
as  bronze  and  unyielding  as  granite — this  envy,  intense  to 
passion,  morbid  to  womanishness,  vivid  to  exaggeration  of  all 
these  symbols,  appanages,  and  privileges  of  rank.  Chiefly,  of 
course,  he  envied  them  for  that  of  which  they  were  the  insignia 
and  the  producer,  but,  beyond  this,  he  envied  them  themselves, 
pnvied  every  trifle  of  their  distinction  with  as  acute  and  as 


00  CHANDOS. 

feminine  a  jealousy  as  ever  rankled  in  a  woman's  heart  for  the 

baubles  and  the  flatteries  she  can  not  attain.  It  was  a  weak- 
ness, and  one  curiously  and  deejDly  graven  into  his  tempera- 
ment in  all  other  respects  so  bright,  so  shrewd,  so  practical, 
and  so  dauntless. 

As  he  turned  from  the  casement,  the  retriever.  Beau  Sire, 
standing  near,  fixed  his  brown  eyes  on  him  and  growled  a 
fierce,  short  growl  of  defiance.  Trevenna  looked  at  him  and 
laughed. 

"  Curse  you,  dog!  You  needn't  be  jealous  of  me,  Beau 
Sire:  I  don't  love  your  master." 

Nevertheless,  Trevenna  rang  the  bell,  and  ordered  some  of 
the  best  clarets  of  Beau  Sire's  master  to  be  brought  for  his 
own  drinking,  and  took  his  luncheon  in  solitude  off  some  of 
the  masterpieces  of  that  culinary  rAf/,  M-  Dubosc.  He  offered 
Beau  Sire  the  dog's  favorite  bonne  bouclie,  the  liver-wing  of  a 
pheasant:  but  Beau  Sire  showed  his  teeth,  and  refused  to 
touch  it,  with  a  superb  canine  scorn. 

"  You've  more  discrimination  than  your  master,  0,  you 
Lavater  among  retrievers!  You  know  his  foes;  7/ e  doesn't," 
laughed  Trevenna,  while  he  finished  his  luncheon  with  the 
finer  appreciation  of  Dubosc's  talent,  and  of  the  oily  perfec- 
tions of  the  hock  and  the  maraschino,  because  of  his  previous 
asceticism  over  a  mutton-chop. 

"  You  are  safe  for  the  Cup,  Ernest?"  said  his  Grace  of  Cas- 
tlemaine,  as  they  encountered  each  other  in  the  press  of  the 
reception-room  at  the  palace.  The  duke  was  a  very  old  man, 
but  he  was  as  superb  a  gentleman  as  any  in  Europe,  a  gallant 
soldier,  a  splenid  noble  still,  with  his  lion-like  mane  of  silken, 
silver  hair  and  his  blue  and  flashing  eyes,  as  he  stood  now  in 
his  field-marshal's  uniform,  with  the  Garter  ribbon  crossing 
his  chest,  and  stars  and  orders  innumerable  on  his  heart,  above 
the  scars  of  breast-wounds  gained  at  Vittoria  and  in  many  a 
cavalry- charge  in  Spain. 

"  Safe?  Oh,  yes.  There  is  nothing  in  any  of  the  establish- 
ments to  be  looked  at  beside  Galahad,"  answered  Chandos, 
between  whom  and  the  duke  there  was  always  a  sincere  and 
cordial  affection.     They  were  alike  in  many  things. 

"  Xo:  at  least  it  must  be  kept  very  dark  if  there  be.  By 
the  way,  there  was  a  man — a  thorough  scamp,  but  a  very  good 
judge  of  a  horse — offering  very  widely  at  Tattersall's  to-day 
on  a  chestnut.  Diadem.  I  know  tlie  fellow:  he  got  into  diffi- 
culties years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  White  Duchess  scandal: 
she  was  carted  out  stiff  as  a  stake  on  the  St,  Leger  morning, 
and  it  was  always  suspected  he  poisoned  her;  but  he  would 


CHANDOS.  57 

know  what  he  was  about,  aud  he  offered  long  odds  on  this 
chestnut.'* 

"Diadem?"  repeated  Chandos,  whose  eyes  were  glancing 
over  the  many-colored  sea  about  him,  of  feathers,  jewels, 
floating  trains,  military  orders,  and  heavy  epaulets,  to  seek  out 
the  Queen  of  Lilies.  "  Diadem?  You  mean  an  outsider,  en« 
tered  by  a  Yorkshire  man?  My  dear  duke,  lie  is  the  most 
wretched  animal,  I  hear.  Trevenna  tells  me  he  could  not  win 
in  a  Consolation  scramble." 

"  Humph!  may  be.  You  never  scarcely  go  to  the  Corner 
yourself?"' 

"  Very  rarely.  I  like  to  keep  up  the  honor  of  the  Claren- 
cieux  establishment;  but  of  all  abominations  the  slang  of  the 
stable  is  the  most  tedious.  Trevenna  manages  all  that  for 
me,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  I  kuow.  Clever  fellow,  very  clever;  but  I  never 
liked  him.     Nothing  but  an  adventurer." 

Chandos  laughed  as  he  moved  to  pierce  his  way  toward  the 
young  Duchess  of  Fitz-Eden,  a  beautiful  brunette,  with 
whom,  rightly  or  wrongly,  society  had  entangled  his  name  in 
a  very  tender  friendship. 

"  For  shame,  duke!  Vou  should  not  use  that  word.  It  is 
the  last  resource  of  mediocrity  when  it  can  find  nothing  worse 
to  cast  against  excellence." 

"Believe  in  i^eoijle,  my  dear  Chandos;  believe  in  them! 
You  will  find  it  so  profitable!"  murmured  his  Grace,  as  the 
press  of  the  crowd  swept  them  asunder,  and  Chandos,  joining 
the  young  duchess,  while  bows,  smiles,  and  morning  greetings 
recognized  him  on  all  sides  from  the  courtly  mob,  passed  on 
with  her  into  the  presence-chamber. 

From  the  Guardsmen,  who,  to  their  own  discomfiture,  had 
formed  the  escort,  and  were  drawn  up  with  their  troop 
outside  to  catch  but  fugitive  glimpses  of  fair  faces  as  the  car- 
riages passed,  to  the  ministers  in  the  Throne-room,  whose 
thoughts  were  usually  too  prosaicalh'  bent  on  questions  of 
supply  or  votes  of  want  of  confidence  to  turn  much  to  these 
vanities,  there  was  one  predominant  and  heightened  expecta- 
tion— the  sight  of  the  Queen  of  Lilies.  Rumor  had  long 
floated  from- Rome  of  her  extraordinary  loveliness;  poets  had 
sung  it,  sculptors  immortalized  it,  aud  artists  adored  it  there. 
The  golden  Southern  sun  had  ripened  it  to  its  richest  there, 
and  it  came  now  to  adorn  the  court.  It  drifted  across  the 
thoughts  of  Chandos,  to  the  detriment  of  much  of  the  beauty 
that  was  about  him,  and  he  waited  for  it  impatiently  where  he 
stood  among  the  circle  of  princes,  peers,  and  statesmen  about 


58  CHANDOS. 

the  throne.  His  loves  had  been  countless,  always  successful, 
never  embittered,  intensely  impassioned  while  they  lasted, 
swiftly  awakened,  and  often  as  rapidly  inconstant.  The  very 
facility  with  wliich  his  vows  were  heard  made  them  as  easily 
broken:  he  loved  passionately,  but  he  loved  so  many.  The 
eyes  that  he  had  last  looked  on  were  always  the  stars  that 
guided  him.  A  woman  would  very  likely  have  told  him  that 
he  had  never  really  loved:  he  would  have  told  her  that  he  had 
loved  a  thousand  times.  And  he  would  have  been  more  right 
than  she.  Love  is  no  more  eternal  than  the  roses,  but,  like 
the  roses,  it  renews  with  every  summer  sun  in  as  fair  a  fra- 
grance as  it  bloomed  before. 

Women  only  rebel  against  this  truth  because  their  season  of 
the  roses — their  youth — is  so  short. 

One  after  one  they  passed  before  him,  the  beauties  of  the 
year;  none  attracted  him  very  much.  He  had  been  so  fully 
sated  by  all  that  was  most  dazzling  and  seductive  in  feminine 
loveliness  for  so  many  years  that,  while  still  impressionable, 
he  was,  as  they  called  him,  fastidious.  He  looked  almost 
eagerly  for  the  presentation  of  the  Queen  of  Lilies. 

At  last  the  delicate  white  robes  swept  by  him;  thrown  out 
from  the  maze  of  gorgeous  color,  of  gleaming  gold,  of  dia- 
monds and  sapphires,  of  purples  fit  for  Titian,  of  rubies  fit  for 
Rubens,  of  azure,  of  scarlet,  of  amber,  filling  the  chamber, 
like  a  cameo  from  the  deep  hues  of  an  illuminated  back- 
ground, the  Athenian-like  fairness  of  her  face  glanced  once 
more  on  his  sight:  she  was  close  to  him  as  she  swept  toward 
the  throne. 

"  She  is  fit,  herself,  for  the  throne  of  the  C^sars,"  he 
thought,  as  he  followed  the  slow,  soft  movements  of  her  im- 
perial grace.  Once  again  their  eyes  met;  she  saw  him  where 
he  stood  among  the  royal  and  titled  groups  about  the  dais, 
and  a  slight  flush  rose  over  her  brow — a  flush  that,  if  it  be- 
trayed her,  was  hidden  as  she  bowed  her  proud  young  head  be- 
fore her  sovereign,  yet  not  hidden  so  soon  but  that  he  caught 
it. 

"  Passionless!  They  must  wrong  her;  they  have  not  known 
hov/  to  stir  her  heart,"  he  thought,  as  he  followed  her  with 
his  glance  till  she  passed  onward  and  out  of  the  Throne- 
room;  and  through  the  rest  of  the  gorgeous  and  tedious  cere- 
mony Chandos  let  his  thoughts  dwell  on  those  deep  gazelle 
eyes  and  those  soft  silent  lips,  musing  how  easy  and  how  be- 
guiling a  task  it  would  be  to  teach  the  one  the  "  looks  that 
burn  "  and  woo  from  the  other  their  first  lingering  caress. 
Her  remembrance  haunted  him  in  the  palace:  for  the  firsi 


CHANDOS.  '  59 

time  he  thrust  such  a  remembrance  away.  "  Bagatelle!^'  he 
thought,  as  he  threw  himself  back  among  his  carriage-cushions 
and  drove  to  Flora  de  I'Orme's.  "  Let  me  keep  to  beauty 
that  I  can  win  at  no  cost  but  a  set  of  emeralds  or  a  toy-villa: 
the  payment  for  liers  would  be  far  too  dear.  Heloise  was 
right. " 

Chandoswas  a  man  for  whom  too  varied  amusements  waited, 
and  by  whom  too  rich  and  intoxicating  a  life  was  hourly  led, 
for  one  woman  to  be  able  in  absence  to  retain  her  hold  on 
him.  The  world,  like  a  kaleidoscope,  was  always  turning  its 
most  seductive  pictures  toward  him.  How  was  it  possible 
that  his  gaze  could  linger  long  and  faithfully  on  one? 

*'  Brilliant  affair!  More  like  2k  fete  a  la  Regence  than  any- 
thing else.  How  the  money  goes!  The  cost  of  one  of  those 
nights  would  buy  me  a  seat  in  the  House,"  thought  Trevenna 
that  evening,  as  he  passed  up  the  staircase  of  Park  Lane. 

The  dinners  and  suppers  of  the  Richmond  villa  in  all  their 
gayetyand  extravagance,  were  not  more  famous  with  Anonyma 
and  her  sisterhood  than  the  entertainments  to  the  aristocratic 
worlds  with  which  Chandos  in  Paris  and  Naples  revived  all  the 
splendor  of  both  regencies,  and  outshone  in  his  own  houses  the 
gatherings  of  imperial  courts,  were  celebrated  in  that  creme  de 
la  creme  which  alone  were  summoned  to  them.  The  fetes 
that  he  gave  abroad  he  gave  in  England,  startling  society  with 
their  novelty  and  their  magnificence.  Chandos  showed  that 
the  art  of  pleasure  was  not  dead.  To-night  all  that  was  high- 
est in  both  the  French  and  English  aristocracies  came  to  a 
costume-ball  that  was  also  at  pleasure  a  masked-ball,  and  pro- 
fessedly in  imitation  of  the  Veglione  of  Florentine  carnivals. 
Trevenna  paused  a  moment  near  the  entrance  of  the  recep- 
tion-rooms, where  he  could  see  both  the  constantly  increasing 
throng  that  ascended  the  stairs  and  the  long  joerspective  of  the 
chambers  beyond,  that  ended  in  the  dark  palm-groups,  the 
masses  of  tropic  flowers,  and  the  columns  and  sheets  of  glanc- 
ing water  foaming  in  the  light  of  the  winter-garden  in  the  dis- 
tance. Masked  himself,  and  dressed  simply  in  a  dark  violet 
domino,  he  looked  down  through  the  pageant  of  color,  fused 
into  one  rich  glow  by  the  luster  that  streamed  from  a  hundred 
chandeliers,  from  a  thousand  points  of  illumination,  till  his 
eyes  found  and  rested  on  Chandos,  who,  with  the  famed  Clar- 
encieux  diamonds  glittering  at  every  point  of  his  costume,  as 
Edward  the  Fourth,  stood  far  off  in  an  inner  drawing-room 
receiving  his  guests  as  they  arrived. 

"Ah,  my  White  liose!"  said  Trevenna  to  himself,  "how 
the  women  love  you,  and  how  the   world  loves  you,  and  how 


60  CHANDO*. 

lightly  you  wear  your  crown!  Edward  himself  had  not 
brighter  gold  in  his  hair,  nor  fairer  loves  to  his  fancy.  Well, 
you  have  some  Plantagenet  blood,  they  say,  in  that  sangre 
aziil  of  your  gentleman's  veins,  and  the  Plaatagenets  were 
always  dazzling  and — doomed." 

With  whicli  liistorical  reminiscence  drifting  through  his 
thoughts,  Trevenna  drew  himself  a  little  back  further  into 
the  shelter  of  an  alcove  filled  with  broad-leaved  Mexican 
plants,  and  studied  the  scene  at  his  leisure,  his  eyes  recurring 
every  now  and  then  with  persistent  contemplation  to  the  dis- 
tant form  of  his  friend  and  host,  where  the  diamonds  of  Clar- 
encieux,  that  had  glittered  at  many  a  Stuart  and  Bourbon 
gathering,  sparkled  with  every  movement  of  Chandos  as  he 
bowed  to  a  prince,  greeted  an  embassador,  or  smiled  on  a 
beauty.  There  was  a  certain  savage  envy  and  a  certain  lus- 
cious satisfaction  mingled  together  in  the  contemplation. 

"  The  fools  that  go  to  see  Moliere  and  read  novels  and 
satires,  while  they  can  look  on  at  life!'"  thought  Ti-evenna, 
who  was  never  weary  of  watching  that  mingling  of  comedy 
and  melodrama,  though  his  genus  was  rather  the  loquacious 
than  the  meditative.  "  I  can't  picture  greater  fun  than  to 
have  been  aweather-wisephilosopher  who  knew  what  Vesuvius 
was  going  to  do,  told  nobody  anything,  but  took  a  stroll 
through  Pompeii  on  the  last  day,  while  his  skiff  waited  for 
him  in  the  bay.  Fancy  seeing  tlie  misers  clutch  their  gold, 
while  he  knew  they'd  offer  it  all  for  bare  life  in  an  hour;  the 
lovers  swear  to  love  for  eternity,  while  he  knew  their  lips 
would  be  cold  before  night;  the  bakers  put  their  loaves  in  the 
oven,  while  he  knew  nobody  would  ever  take  them  out;  the 
epicures  order  their  prandium,  while  he  knew  their  mouths 
would  be  choke-full  of  ashes;  the  throngs  j^our  into  the  circus, 
laughing  and  eager,  while  he  knew  they  poured  into  their 
grave;  the  city  gay  in  the  sunshine,  while  he  knew  that  the 
lava-flood  would  swamp  it  all  before  sunset.  That  would 
have  been  a  comedy  worth  seeing.  Well,  I  can  fancy  it  a  lit- 
tle. My  graceful  Pompeian,  who  know  nothing  but  the  rose- 
wreaths  of  Aglac  and  Astarte,  how  will  you  like  the  stones  and 
the  dust  in  your  teeth?" 

And  Trevenna,  pausing  a  moment  to  enjoy  to  its  fullest  the 
classical  tableau  he  had  called  up  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  look- 
ing still  at  the  friend  whom  he  had  alternately  apostrophized 
as  Plantagenet  and  Pompeian,  left  his  alcove  and  his  reverie 
to  mingle  with  the  titled  crowd,  in  his  dark  domino  and  his 
close  Venetian  mask,  casting  an  epigram  here,  a  scandal  there, 
a  suspicion  ic  this  place,  a  slander  in  that,  blowing  away  a 


CHANDOS.  61 

reputation  as  lightly  as  thistle-do wu,  and  sowing  a  seed  of  dis- 
union between  two  lives  that  loved,  with  dexterous  whispers 
under  his  disguise  that  could  never  he  traced,  and  as  amused 
a  malice  in  the  employment  as  any  Siamese  monkey  when  he 
swings  himself  by  his  tail  from  bough  to  bough  to  provoke  the 
crocodiles  to  exasperation.  True,  as  monkey  may  get  eaten 
for  his  fun,  so  Trevenna  might  get  found  out  for  his  pastime; 
but,  to  both  monkey  and  man,  the  minimum  of  danger  with 
the  maximum  of  mischief  made  a  temptation  that  was  irre- 
sistible. Trevenna  had  been  the  most  mischievous  boy  that 
ever  tormented  tom-cats;  he  was  now  the  most  mischievous 
wit  that  ever  tormented  mankind. 

He  was  a  moral  man;  he  had  no  vices;  he  had  only  one 
weakness — he  hated  humanity. 

"  How  extravagant  you  are,  Ernest!'^  said  the  Duke  of 
Castlemaine,  who  had  made  his  appearance  for  twenty  min- 
utes with  his  daughter-in-law,  the  Marchioness  of  Deloraine,  a 
beautiful  Austrian  blonde  of  two-and-twenty  years,  the  hostess, 
to  a  certain  extent,  of  Chaudos's  great  parties.  "  Do  you 
think  these  people  love  you  any  the  better  for  all  you  throw 
away  on  them,  eh?" 

"  Love  me?  Well,  the  fairer  section  do,  I  hope,"'  laughed 
Ohandos,  lingering  a  moment. 

The  duke  gave  another  little  growl  to  himself  as  he  brushed 
a  moth  off  his  broad  blue  ribbon.  He  too  had  had  a  jetinesse 
orageuse,  and  had  made  Europe  ring  with  the  brilliance  of  his 
extravagances;  but  Warburne  Abbey  now  was  heavily  laden 
with  mortgage  in  consequence,  and  its  noble  owner  sometimes 
wished  that  he  had  played  a  little  less  a7i  roi  deponiUe. 

"Ah!  women  were  alv/ays  the  ruin  of  your  race,  and  of 
mine:  you  have  the  weakness  from  both  sides,  Ernest.  There 
was  your  father — " 

"  Who  was  a  deucedly  proud  man,  wasn't  he,  duke?''  asked 
Trevenna,  with  scant  ceremony,  as  he  came  up  by  Castle- 
maine's  side,  without  his  mask  now,  and  having  glided  into  a 
blue  domino,  that  his  gunpowder-whispers  might  not  be  traced 
to  him. 

The  duke  looked  on  him  from  the  tower  of  his  height, 
scarce  bent  more  than  when  he  was  a  colonel  of  cavalry  at 
Salamanca. 

"  Proud?  Porliaps  so,  sir.  Adventurers  thought  him  so. 
He  put  down  impudence  wherever  he  met  with  it.  It  is  a  pity 
he  is  not  alive  now." 

"  To  put  7)ie  down?  I  understand,  duke,"  laughed  Tre- 
venna, impervious  to  satire,  and  impenetrable  even  to  a  cut 


62  CHANDOS. 

direct,  who  caught  every  bullet  sent  against  him  gayly  and 
courageously,  and  played  with  it  unharmed  as  a  conjurer  will. 
(What  magic  has  tlie  conjurer?  None;  but  he  has  one  trick 
more  than  the  world  that  he  baffles).  "Ah!  I  can't  let  my- 
self be  put  down;  I'm  like  a  cork  or  an  outrigger;  all  my 
safety  lies  in  my  buoyancy.  I  have  no  ballast;  I  must  float  as 
I  can.     Storms  sink  ships  of  the  line,  and  spare  straws." 

"Yes,  sir,  rubbish  floats  generally,  I  believe,"  said  his 
grace,  grimly,  turning  his  back  on  him  as  he  took  out  his 
snufE-box,  enameled  by  Pettitot  and  given  him  by  Charles 
Dix.  Trevenna  bowed  as  low  as  though  the  silver-haired 
Sabreur  had  paid  him  a  compliment  and  had  not  turned  his 
back  on  him. 

"  I  accept  your  grace's  prophecy.  Eubbish  floats;  /  shall 
float.  And  when  I  am  at  the  top  of  the  wave,  won't  every 
one  call  my  dirtiest  pebbles  fine  jaearlsr" 

"  I  think  he  will  float,"  murmured  the  duke,  passing  out- 
ward through  the  rooms  to  the  noiseless,  shut-off,  luxurious 
chamber  dedicated  to  cards,  which  had  an  altar  in  Chaudos's 
house  as  though  they  v/ere  its  Penates.  "  Sort  of  man  to  do 
well  anywhere;  be  a  privileged  wit  in  a  palace,  and  chief 
demagogue  in  a  revolution;  be  merry  in  a  bagne,  and  give  a 
pat  answer  if  he  were  tried  for  his  life;  hold  his  own  in  a  cabi- 
net, and  thrive  in  the  bush.  A  clever  fellow,  an  audacious 
fellow,  a  most  marvelous,  impudent  fellow." 

"  An  insufferable  fellow!  I  wish  Chandos  would  not  give 
him  the  run  of  the  house,  and  the  run  of  the  town,  as  he 
does,"  said  my  Lord  of  Morehamptou,  wending  his  way  also 
to  the  card-rooms.     "  The  man  has  no  idea  of  his  place." 

"  I  think  he  has  only  too  good  a  one:  he  imagines  it  to  be 
— everywhere.  But  the  fellow  will  do  well.  He  plays  so  ad- 
mirable a  game  of  whist;  leads  trumps  in  the  bold  French 
manner,  which  has  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  it;  has  an  aston- 
ishing, recuperative  power;  if  one  play  will  not  serve,  changes 
his  attack  and  defense  with  amazirjg  address,  and  does  more 
with  a  wretched  hand  than  half  the  players  in  the  clubs  do 
with  a  good  one.  A  man  who  can  play  whist  like  that  could 
command  a  kingdom;  he  has  learned  to  be  ready  for  every 
position  and  for  every  emergency.  Still,  with  you,  I  don't 
like  him,"  said  his  grace,  entering  the  card-room  to  devote 
himself  to  his  favorite  science  at  guinea  points,  where,  despite 
his  inherent  aversion  to  Trevenna,  he  would  have  been  willing 
to  have  had  that  inimitable  master  of  the  rubber  for  a  partner. 

The  duke  was  quite  right,  that  a  man  who  has  trained  his 
intellect  to  perfection  in  whist  has  trained  it  to  be  capable  of 


CHANDOS.  63 

achieving  anything  that  the  world  could  offer.  A  campaign 
does  not  need  more  combination;  a  cabinet  does  not  require 
more  address;  an  astrouomer-royal  does  not  solve  finer  prob- 
lems; a  continental  diplomatist  does  not  prove  greater  tact. 
Trevenna  had  laid  out  the  time  he  spent  over  its  green  table 
even  more  profitably  for  the  ripening  and  refining  of  his  intel- 
ligence than  in  the  hours  he  gave  to  his  blue-booiis;  and  the 
duke's  eulogy  was  but  just. 

His  rooms  were  nearly  full,  but  Chaudos  still  glanced  every 
now  and  then  impatiently  toward  the  entrance-doors  that 
opened  in  the  distance  to  the  staircase.  Eyes  that  might  well 
claim  to  be  load-stars  wooed  him  through  coquettish  Venetian 
masks,  and  faces  too  fair  for  that  envious  disguise  met  his  gaze 
wherever  it  turned.  On  his  ear  at  that  moment  was  the  sil- 
very ring  of  La  Vivarol's  gay  raillery,  and  at  his  side  was  that 
bright  exile  of  the  Tuileries,  tiuttering  her  sapphire-studded 
wings  as  a  fille  des  feux,  and  bewitching  in  her  coquette's 
charms  as  any  portrait  aux  Amours  of  Mignard.  Still  ever 
and  again  his  eyes  turned  toward  the  entrance  as  he  moved 
among  his  guests,  and  suddenly  a  new  look  glanced  into  them: 
they  were  too  eloquent  to  women  not  to  be  unconsciously  and, 
for  him,  dangerously  expressive.  Slie  who  held  him  captive 
at  that  moment  saw  that  look,  and  knew  it  well.  She  had 
seen  it  lighten  for  her  in  the  forests  of  Compiegne  when  the 
summer  moon  had  streamed  down  through  the  leaves  on  a 
royal  hunting-party  sweeping  through  the  glades  to  the  mellow 
music  of  hunting-horns,  and  they  had  lingered  behind  while 
the  bridles  dropped  on  their  horses'  necks,  and  only  the  woo- 
ing of  soft  words  broke  the  silence  as  the  hoofs  sunk  noiselessly 
in  tlie  deep  thyme-tangled  grasses. 

She  knew  the  look  of  old,  and  followed  it.  It  rested  on  the 
Queen  of  Lilies. 

If  that  poetic  loveliness  had  been  fair  in  the  morning  light, 
it  was  far  fairer  now.  By  a  delicate  flattery  to  her  host,  the 
Lily  Queen  had  chosen  as  her  impersonation  the  role  of  his  own 
Lucrece — a  Byzantine  Greek;  and  her  dress,  half  Eastern, 
glowed  with  the  brightness  of  Oriental  hues,  while  the  snow- 
white  barracan  floated  round  her  like  a  cloud,  and  Byzantine 
jewels  gleamed  upon  her  bosom  and  her  hair — jewels  that  had 
seen  the  Court  of  the  Comneni  and  the  sack  of  Dandolo — 
jewels  that  had  once,  perhaps,  been  on  the  proud,  false  brow 
of  the  imperial  Irene. 

Involuntarily  Chandos  moved  slightly  forward;  involuntarily 
tht^ro  ran,  even  through  that  courtly  and  impassive  crowd,  an 


•?1  CHANDOS. 

jrrej^ressible,  low  murmur  of  admiration.  La  Vivarol  looked, 
and  did  not  underrate  one  in  whom  she  foresaw  her  rival. 

She  arched  iier  [)euciled,  piquant  eyebrows. 

"  Ah,  there  is  your  living  Lucrece!  It  must  be  charming 
to  sketch  characters  and  find  them  come  to  life." 

Chandos  lost  the  ironic  and  malicious  contemj)t  with  which 
jealousy  subtilely  tipped  the  tone  of  the  words,  as,  leaving  the 
countess  to  the  homage  of  tbe  maskers  about  her,  he  did  for 
the  Queen  of  Lilies  what  he  had  not  done  for  any  other — 
passed  out  of  the  inner  drawing-room,  where  he  received  his 
guests,  and  advanced  to  meet  the  impersonation  of  his 
Lucrece. 

That  moment  was  fatal  to  him — that  moment  in  which  she 
came  on  his  sight  as  startling  as  though  magic  had  summoned 
the  living  shape  of  his  own  fancies  and  breathed  the  breath  of 
existence  into  the  thoughts  of  his  jDoem.  He  would  never 
now  see  her  as  she  was;  he  would  see  in  her  only  his  own  ideal, 
not  asking  whether  she  only  resembled  it  as  the  jeweler's  lily 
with  petals  of  pearl  and  leaves  of  emerald,  which  gleams 
equally  bright  in  every  hand,  resembles  the  forest-lily  with  its 
perfume  and  purity,  growing  fair  and  free  under  the  sunshine 
of  heaven,  which  dies  under  one  ungentle  and  ahen  touch. 

The  lilies  may  be  alike,  leaf  for  leaf,  beauty  for  beauty,  but 
the  fragrance  is  breathed  but  from  one. 

"  Necromancers  of  old  summoned  the  dead;  you  have  done 
more,  Lady  Valencia,  you  have  caught  and  incarnated  an 
idler's  dream.  How  can  he  ever  thank  you?"  he  said,  later 
on,  as  he  led  her  into  the  winter-garden,  where  the  light  was 
subdued  after  the  glitter  of  the  salons,  and  the  hum  of  the 
ball  with  the  strains  of  the  music  were  only  half  heard,  and 
through  the  arching  aisles  of  palm  and  exotics  his  Circassian 
attendants  noiselessly  flitted  like  so  many  bright-hued  birds. 

She  smiled,  while  a  new  luster  came  into  the  thoughtful 
splendor  of  her  eyes,  and  a  soft,  wild  warmth  on  her  cheek. 
Her  heart  was  moved — or  her  pride. 

"  I  must  rather  thank  you  that  you  do  not  rebuke  me  for 
being  too  rash.     I  assure  you  that  I  feared  my  own  temerity. " 

"  What  fear  could  you  have,  save  out  of  pity  for  others? 
My  fairest  fancies  of  Lucrece  are  embodied  now — perhaps  only 
too  well.  What  made  you  divine  so  entirely  the  woman  I 
dreamed  of?  She  only  floated  dimly  even  through  my 
thoughts,  until  I  saw  her  to-night." 

She  looked  at  him  almost  deprecatiugly,  and  that  look  on 
her  proud  and  sovereign  loveliness  had  a  greater  charm  than 


csAiirDos.  66 

on  women  more  capable  of  entreaty,  less  used  to  a  victorious 
and  unquestioned  power. 

"  Hush  I  That  is  the  language  of  compliment.  I  liave 
heard  liovv  delicately  and  how  dangerously  you  will  flatter." 

"Indeed,  no:  you  have  heard  wrongly.  I  never  flatter. 
But  there  are  some — you  are  one  of  them — to  whom  the 
simplest  words  of  truth  must  needs  sound  the  words  of  an 
exaggerated  homage.^' 

He  spoke  with  the  caressing  gentleness  of  his  habitual  man- 
ner with  women,  while  his  eyes  dwelt  on  her  with  a  softer  elo- 
quence still.  He  spoke,  moreover,  in  fullest  sincerity.  As  he 
looked  down  on  her  in  the  shadowed  and  silvered  light,  while 
the  pale-green  foliage  and  the  burning  hues  of  the  tropical 
plants  were  around  her  and  above  her  in  their  maze  of  hue 
and  perfume,  he  might  have  been,  in  the  dead  Byzantine  years, 
beside  tlie  sorceress  beauty  that  Justinian  crowned,  or  that 
bloomed  with  the  Eastern  roses  in  the  soft  isles  of  Propontis. 

So  far,  it  was  well  for  him  that  he  was  not  alone  with  her, 
though  this  was  but  the* first  night  that  she  had  been  present- 
ed to  him.  All  love  in  Chandos  had  been  quickly  roused, 
rather  from  the  senses  and  the  fancy  than  the  heart,  and 
roused  for  those  to  whom  there  was  a  royal  road,  pursued  at 
no  heavier  j^enalty  than  some  slight  entanglement.  That  this 
royal  road  could  not  avail  with  the  Queen  of  Lilies  chilled  her 
charm,  and  yet  heightened  it,  as  it  lay  like  a  light  but  unyield- 
ing rein,  checking  the  admiration  she  roused  in  him,  yet  not 
checking  it  so  much  but  that  she  enchained  his  attention  while 
she  remained  in  his  rooms,  while  the  bright  eyes  of  his  neglect- 
ed fille  des  feux  kept  dangerous  account  of  the  lese-majeste. 

La  Vivarol  fluttered  her  golden  wings,  and  waltzed  as 
though  they  really  bore  her,  bird-like,  through  the  air,  and 
flirted  v/ith  her  most  glittering  coquetries,  and  smiled  on  him 
with  her  most  bewitching  mutine  mouth;  but  she  noted  every 
glance  that  was  given  to  another,  and  treasured  the  trifles  of 
each  slight  infidelity. 

If  a  Viardort,  a  court-coquette,  a  woman  of  the  world,  an 
aristocrat,  could  be  guilty  of  so  much  weakness,  she  had  loved 
Chandos — loved  the  brilliance  of  the  eyes  that  looked  into  hers 
under  the  purple  wine-shadows — loved  the  melody  of  the  voice 
that  had  lingered  on  her  ear  in  the  orange-alleys  of  Fontaine- 
bleau — loved  him  if  only  because  so  many  loved  him  in  vain. 
And  far  more  than  her  heart  was  involved  in  his  allegiance;  a 
thing  far  dearer  to  her,  far  closer  and  more  precious  to  all 
women — her  vanity. 

If  any  one  had  talked  to  the  pretty,  worldly,  pampered,  and 

3 


66  CHANDOS. 

little-scrupulous  countess  of  fidelity,  she  would  have  satirized! 
him  mercilessly  for  such  provinciality,  and  would  have  asked 
him  where  he  had  lived  that  he  thought  the  vows  of  the  soft 
religion  eternal.  She  was  infidelity  itself,  and  held  to  the 
right  divine  of  caprice;  talk  of  ''  forever/'  and  she  would 
yawn  with  ennui;  appeal  to  her  reason,  and  she  would  cor- 
dially assent  to  the  truth  that  "  nous  sommes  bien  aises  que 
Fon  devienne  infidele,  pour  nous  dcgager  de  notre  fidelite.'* 
But,  alas  for  the  consistency  of  fair  philosophers!  Madame 
applied  her  theories  to  all  lovers  except  her  own,  and,  while 
she  was  eloquent  on  the  ridicule  and  the  v^^eariness  of  con- 
stancj'',  held  inconstancy  to  herself  as  the  darkest  of  treason. 

A  woman  of  the  world  never,  by  any  hazard,  is  so  impru- 
dent as  to  show  herself  piqued:  such  gaucherie  as  thus  to  show 
her  cards  and  declare  herself  incapable  of  winning  the  game 
were  utterly  impossible  to  her.  La  Vivarol  never  for  a  mo- 
ment so  betrayed  herself:  on  the  contrary,  she  praised  her 
rival  with  as  easy  a  grace  as  she  would  have  praised  a  Velas- 
quez, whenever  she  spoke  of  her.  Nevertheless,  not  one  glance 
that  her  lover  bestowed,  not  one  waltz  that  he  gave,  not  one 
moment  that  he  was  held  captive  to  Lady  Valencia,  escaped 
her.  She  had  drawn  him  away — dearest  triumph  of  woman- 
hood!— from  her  sworn  friend;,  the  Duchess  of  Fitz-Edeu,  and 
had  found  her  conquest  exquisitely  sweetened  by  the  heart- 
burning she  caused  to  that  lovely  idiot.  She  had  held  him  en- 
chained longer  than  any  other  ever  had  done;  her  yoke  had 
been  so  skillfully  woven  of  silken  bonds  that  it  had  lasted 
longer  than  any  unbroken.  Of  such  rivals  as  Flora  de  I'Orme 
she  had  been  secretly,  though  she  never  deigned  to  confess  her- 
self, jealous;  of  a  rival  in  her  own  sphere  she  was  intolerant. 

She  had  never  been  given  one  in  the  eighteen  months  that 
had  passed  by  since  the  conte  d' amour  a  la  Boccaccio  had  com- 
menced in  the  gay  autumn  days  of  Comjjiegne;  and  La  Viva- 
rol, whose  breviary  was  Rochefoucauld  and  whose  precursor 
was  Montespan,  philosophized  inimitably  on  the  rights  of  in- 
constancy, but  was  none  the  less  prepared  to  avenge  and  to 
resent  with  all  the  force  of  a  Corsican  vendetta  any  homage 
tliat  should  dare  wander  from  her. 

And  to-night  she  was  openly,  visibly,  unmistakably  neglect- 
ed. As  far  as  the  courtesies  and  duties  of  a  host  allowed  him, 
the  Queen  of  Lilies  usurped  the  attention  and  the  admiration 
of  Chandos  almost  entirely.  The  gleam  of  those  antique 
Byzantine  jewels  was  the  light  that  he  followed.  In  this  new 
loveliness,  so  rich  in  its  coloring,  so  proud  in  its  cast,  yet  deli- 
cate as  the  fakest  thought  of  a  sculptor  when  rendered  into  the 


CHAFDOS.  67 

purity  of  the  marble,  he  saw  the  portraiture  of  an  ideal,  half 
idly,  half  passionately  cast  into  words  in  the  work  he  called 
"  Lucrece,"  that  had  been  chiefly  written  in  hot,  dreamy  days 
in  the  syringa  and  basilica-scented  air  of  his  summer-palace  on 
the  Bosphorus,  and  had  caught  in  it  all  the  voluptuous  color, 
all  the  mystical  enchantment,  all  the  splendida  vitia  of  glow 
and  of  fancy  that  still  belong  to  the  mere  name  of  the  East. 
She  was  no  longer  the  beauty  of  the  season  to  him;  she  was  the 
incarnation  of  his  own  most  golden  and  most  treasured  fancies. 
Side  by  side  in  his  temperament  with  the  nature  of  the  vol- 
uptuary was  the  heart  of  the  poet.  She  appealed  to,  and 
tempted  both.  Since  the  days  of  his  first  loves,  felt  and  whis- 
pered under  Oriental  stars  to  antelope-eyed  Georgians,  none 
had  had  so  vivid  a  charm  as  this  soft  yet  imperial  beauty,  who 
came  to  him  in  the  guise  of  his  heroine.  And  he  let  the  world 
see  it;  what  was  far  more  dangerous,  he  let  the  Countess  de  la 
Vivarol. 

"  If  madame  live  twenty  years,  Chandos,  she  will  never  for- 
give you  to-night/'  whispered  Trevenna,  in  passing,  as  his  host 
ascended  the  staircase,  having  escorted  the  Lady  Valencia  to 
her  carriage,  while  a  crowd  of  glittering  costumes  and  maskers 
followed  her  footsteps — a  ceremonial  he  never  showed  except 
to  those  of  blood  royal. 

"  Forgive  me!    What  have  I  done?'* 

"  What!  Oh,  most  innocent  Lovelace,  what  serene  sub- 
limity of  ignorance!  You  have  piqued  a  jealous  woman,  tres 
cher;  and  he  who  does  that  might  have  as  well  sat  down  upon 
a  barrel  of  gunpowder:  it  is  much  the  less  fatal  combustible 
of  the  two." 

"Nonsense!     We  are  none  of  us  jealous  now:  everybody  is 
too  languid  and  too  well  bred.     How  handsome  Lady  Bel-     _ 
lasysse  looks  to-night!  widowhood  must  be  the  best  cosmetic     to' 
imaginable.*' 

*'  All  women  thrive  on  it.  Women  take  a  husband  as  bal- 
loons take  their  ballast,  because  they  can't  rise  without  it. 
But  the  moment  the  heavy  weight's  dropped  overboard,  yn^\ 
— how  lightly  woman  and  balloon  go  up  in  the  air!" 

Chandos  laughed,  and  passed  on  into  the  throng  of  his 
courtly  maskers  to  seek  the  golden  wings  and  falcon  eyes  of 
his  liege  lady,  and  make  his  peace  with  her,  as  far  as  it  could 
be  made,  without  offending  her  more  deeply  by  showing  her  a 
suspicion  that  the  peace  hail  ever  been  broken. 

Trevenna  looked  after  him,  watching  the  flash  of  the  jewels 
on  his  dress  and  the  careless  grace  of  his  movements  as  he 
passed  through  the  groups  of  hia  drawing-rooms;  and  Tro 


68  CHANDOS. 

venna's  eyes  wandered  downward  through  the  blaze  of  light, 

and  the  wilderness  of  clustered  flowers,  along  the  whole  line 
of  the  marble  stairs  with  their  broad  scarlet  carpeting  into  the 
depths  of  the  hall,  where  at  the  furthest  end,  with  the  luster 
from  two  giant  candelabra  full  upon  it,  was  the  statue  of  the 
gr&at  minister,  Philip  Chandos. 

His  glance  wandered  from  the  living  man,  with  the  living 
flash  of  the  rose-diamonds  about  him  like  so  many  points  of 
sunlight,  to  rest  ujDon  the  cold,  haughty  serenity  of  j^ower  that 
was  spoken  in  the  attitude  of  the  marble  limbs  and  the  traits 
of  the  marble  features  in  that  likeness  of  the  dead. 

And  he  smiled  a  little. 

"  Beaux  seigneurs,  beaux  seigneurs,'*  he  said,  softly  and 
low  to  himself,  "  there  may  be  games  at  which  you  will  not 
win.  Ah,  my  great  Chandos,  how  you  stand  there  in  your 
marble  pride  as  if  you  could  lord  it  over  us  all  still!  and  a 
stone-mason's  hammer  could  knock  you  to  pieces  now.  Sic 
transit  gloria  mundi.  Your  darling  Ernest  is  a  brilliant 
man;  you  have  your  wish;  but  we  may  sing  the  old  see-saw 
over  him  too,  before  very  long.  And  what  will  the  world  care 
for  him  then?" 

With  which  inquiry,  mutely  addressed  in  self-communion  to 
the  statue  where  it  stood  in  the  flood  of  light  and  maze  of 
exotics  in  the  great  hall  below,  Treveniia,  who  never* danced, 
and  had  tormented  people  under  his  change  of  domino  enough 
to  amuse  him  (having  left  many  in  ihe  throes  of  an  agonizing 
suspense  as  to  who  could  have  known  their  most  hidden  pet 
gins,  and  others  in  the  paralyzed  torture  of  doubt  as  to  whether 
their  most  terribly  cherished  family  histories  would  not  make 
popular  fun  next  week  in  the  "  Charivari "  or  in  "  Punch  "), 
went  down-stairs  and  out  to  his  night-cab  as  the  spring  morn- 
ing broke  in  its  earliest  hours. 

He  looked  back  as  he  waited  a  second  in  the  portico  for  the 
cab  to  make  its  way  up  to  him  through  the  long  line  of  wait- 
ing carriages  and  glittering  night-lamps  and  fretting  horses 
and  shouting  footmen.  The  music  came  on  his  ear  from  the 
distant  ball-room,  and  as  he  glanced  backward  at  the  hall  and 
staircase,  with  its  bronzes,  marbles,  malachites,  jasper,  gold 
and  silver  candelabra,  and  clusters  of  blossom  and  of  broad- 
leaved  Southern  shrubs,  while  the  scarlet  of  the  laced  liveries 
gleamed  through  the  boughs  and  made  it  like  one  of  the  pal- 
ace-antechamber scenes  of  Paul  Veronese's  canvas,  the  statue 
rose  white,  calm,  regal  m  its  attitude  of  command,  haughty  as 
had  been  the  life  of  which  it  was  the  mute  and  breathless  sym* 
boL  .  It  caught  Trevenna's  eyes  again. 


CHANDOS.  69 

"Curse  you!"  lie  muttered,  in  his  teeth,  while  the  laugh 
passed  off  his  face  and  the  mirth  out  of  his  eyes.  "  Curse  you 
living,  and  curse  you  dead!  I  will  be  paid,  like  Shylock,  with 
a  pound  of  flesh  cut  from  the  heart — from  the  heart  of  your 
brilliant  darling.  And  your  power  can-not  play  the  part  of 
Portia  and  stop  me  ;  for  you  are  dead,  mon  ministre!" 

And  with  that  valediction  to  the  dwelling  across  whose 
threshold  he  was  ever  welcomed  and  to  whose  board  he  was 
ever  bidden,  Trevenna  passed  down  the  steps  and  drove  away 
in  the  gray  of  the  morning. 


.  CHAPTER    V. 

POESIE   DU   BEAU    SEXE. 

"  You  did  very  well  for  the  first  night,  my  dear,*'  said 
Lady  Chesterton,  muffling  herself  more  comfortably  in  her 
eider-down,  as  her  carriage  rolled  through  the  silent  streets  in 
the  raw  of  the  dawn.  "Certainly  he  admires  you:  that  is 
very  plain. " 

The  Queen  of  Lilies,  leaning  back,  answered  nothing. 
There  was  a  slight  flush  on  her  shell-like  cheek,  and  the  lashes 
were  drooped  over  her  dreamy,  thoughtful,  Velasquez  eyes, 
that  had  so  many  poems  slumbering  in  their  liquid  depths. 
She  was  in  a  soft,  happy  reverie,  a  little  grave,  and  yet  proud- 
ly triumphant,  by  the  shadow  of  the  smile  that  lingered  about 
her  lips. 

At  last  she  spoke. 

"  Those  were  tlie  Clarencieux  diamonds  he  wore,  were  they 
not?     I  think  they  must  be  the  finest  in  Europe. " 

Oh,  poetry  of  a  ^voman's  soul! 

And  this  is  what  men  lose  their  heads  for  and  swear,  while 
the  delirium  lasts,  is  divine. 

Fratres  mei,  believe  me,  the  chorus-singer  whom  you  estab-  ^ 
lish  in  her  little  bijou  villa,  and  who,  though  before  she  came 
under  your  protection  she  thought  it  the  height  of  good  fortune 
to  be  sure  of  bread  and  cheese,  now  will  touch  nothing  meaner 
than  champagne  and  chicken,  does  not  weigh  you  more  en- 
tirely by  what  you  are  worth  to  her  than  will  nine-tenths  of 
the  delicate  high-born  ladies  to  buy  whom  you  must  barter 
your  freedom. 

There  is  no  sort  of  differ6nce  in  their  speculations  for  re- 
munerative surrender:  there  is  only  a  difference  in  their  price. 


7C  CHANDOS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

**THE  MAISY  TEAKS  OF  PAIK  THAT  TAUGHT  ME  ART.** 

Whe^t  his  guests  had  left,  and  all  the  costumes  that  had 
glittered  through  his  salons  had  dispersed,  some  half  dozen 
men,  his  most  especial  friends,  remained,  among  them  Cos 
Grenvil  and  the  Due  de  ISTeuilly,  with  his  cousin.  Prince 
Philippe  d'Orvdle,  and  in  a  cabinet  de  peinfure,  hung  chiefly 
with  French  pictures  of  the  eighteenth  century,  while  the 
Circassians  brought  them  wines  and  liqueurs,  sat  down  to 
Trente  et  Quarante,  half  of  them  taking  the  bank  and  half  the 
table.  It  was  a  customary  termination  of  Chandos'  parties, 
and  was  at  least  an  admirable  stimulant  for  sweeping  away  too 
lingering  memories  of  beauty  that  might  have  appeared  there. 

*' Ah,  that  we  had  a  Crockford's!  They  have  left  us  no 
choice  but  to  play  in  our  own  houses  or  to  go  among  Greeks 
and  blackguards;  as  if  they  could  suppress  our  gaming  any 
more  than  they  can  suppress  our  breathing,  or  had  any  more 
right  to  interfere  with  it!"  cried  Chandos,  as  an  almond-eyed 
girl  from  the  Deccan  poured  him  out  some  iced  hock. 

"  You  give  us  a  very  good  substitute  for  Crockford's, 
though,  mon  cher  Ernest/'  said  D'Orvale.  ''  I  am  disposed 
to  regret  nothing  when  I  am  once  within  this  little  painted 
chamber,  except,  perhaps,  that  your  Hebes  are  a  little  bit  too 
distracting. " 

"  1  think  your  Highness  is  not  given  to  regretting  any  detri- 
ment from  that  sort  of  cause  any  more  than  I  am,*'  laughed 
Chandos,  while  he  sat  down  to  the  table  and  staked  his  gold 
with  the  lavishness  that  was  in  his  blood  from  men  who  had 
played  through  long  forenoons  at  "Whitehall  with  Eochester 
and  .Jermyn. 

The  Chandos  of  Clarencieux  had  always  been  famed  for 
their  love  of  play  from  the  days  that  they  shook  the  dice  with 
Charles  the  Second,  or  threw  a  main  before  supper  at  Clioisy 
with  Louis  and  Richelieu  and  Soubise.  But  his  love  of  cards, 
however  great  it  might  be,  had  not  cost  him  so  much  as  an- 
other trait  in  his  nature,  /.  e.,  that  he  loved  men  and  trusted 
them  with  an  absolute  and  undoubting  faith.  This  was  the 
most  costly  of  all  his  extravagances. 

The  Trente  et  Quarante  in  the  little  picture-cabinet  was  too 
beiguiling  to  be  quickly  left;  the  gold  changed  hands  like 
lightning,  not  going  less  quickly  for  the  iced  hock  and  the 


CHAKDOS.  71 

claret  and  seltzer  that  washed  it  down,  and  the  gay  passages 
with  the  pretty  Easterns  that  interrupted  it.  It  was  past  six 
in  the  morning  when  D'Orvale  broke  up  the  bank  and  gave 
the  signal  for  departure,  he  with  Chandos  having  been  the 
chief  losers.  The  latter  cared  only  for  the  gay  excitement  of 
hazard;  when  the  game  was  over,  whether  it  had  been  favor- 
able to  him  or  not,  he  cared  not  one  straw.  Generous  to  great 
excess,  he  never  heeded  the  loss  of  money,  as,  it  is  true,  he  had 
never  learned  the  value  of  it. 

Ever  since  he  could  remember,  money,  in  as  much  abun- 
dance as  he  wanted  it,gWas  his  to  throw  away  by  handf uls,  if  it 
gave  him  any  pleasure;  and  all  that  money  could  bring  was 
his  at  a  word,  without  seeking  it.  Such  an  atmosphere  from 
his  childhood  up  was  not  one  to  supj)ly  a  nature,  by  instinct 
lavish  as  the  winds  and  careless  to  a  fault,  with  any  thought  of 
care  for,  or  of  caution  in,  exjienditure. 

As  he  went  through  the  corridors  to  his  own  chamber,  after 
his  guests  had  at  last  left  him,  to  take  a  few  hours'  sleep  in 
the  opening  day,  the  deep,  rich,  melancholy  roll  of  organ-notes, 
hushed  by  closed  doors,  but  2:>ealing  the  Tantum  Ergo,  caught 
his  ear  in  the  silence.  Music  had  been  a  passion  with  him 
from  his  infancy;  wealth  had  enabled  him  to  indulge  the  pas- 
sion to  the  full,  and  its  strains  drew  him  toward  it  now. 

"  Lulli  is  beginning  a  new  day  while  we  are  going  to  bed,^* 
he  thought,  as  he  turned  down  a  short  passage  and  opened  the 
door  that  shut  in  the  melody.  The  daylight  in  the  chamber 
looked  strangely  v/hite  and  pure  and  subdued  after  the  glare 
of  the  myriad  gas  and  wax  lights;  and  his  form,  with  the  rich 
silks,  laces,  and  velvets  of  the  Edward-the-Fourth  dress,  and 
the  sparkle  of  the  Clarencieux  diamonds,  looked  as  strange 
upon  the  threshold  of  this  quiet  and  antique  room — a  room 
almost  like  an  oratory  in  the  midst  of  the  luxurious  palatial 
Park  Lane  house,  with  its  splendor,  its  crowds,  its  dissipa- 
tions, and  its  unending  gayeties.  The  apartment  was  long, 
lighted  by  two  windows,  through  which  the  just-arisen  sun 
poured  in,  and  the  antique  shape  of  the  walnut-wood  furniture, 
the  ebony  music  and  reading-desks,  and  the  carved  ivory  Christ 
above  a  table  in  a  recess,  gave  it  the  look  of  a  religious  retreat, 
especially  as  at  the  further  end  stood  an  organ,  with  its  gilded 
tubes  glistening  against  the  dark  walnut  of  its  case,  whde 
from  its  chords  there  swelled  the  harmony  of  the  great  Sacra- 
mental Hymn. 

The  musician  was  a  man  of  five-or  six-and-twenty,  whose 
head  had  the  spiritual  beauty  of  Shelley's;  the  features  fair 
and  delicate  to  attenuation;  the  eyes  large,  dark,  and  lustrous; 


72  CHAISTDOS. 

the  mouth  very  perfect,  both  in  form  and  expression;  thi 
whole  face  of  singular  patience  and  singular  exaltation.  His 
lower  limbs  were  ail-but  useless,  they  were  slightly  paralyzed 
and  much  crippled,  and  his  shoulders  were  bowed  with  a 
marked  but  in  no  way  repulsive  deformity.  Music  grand  as 
Beethoven  ever  dreamed  or  lasta  ever  sung  woke  from  his 
genius  into  life.  But  in  the  ways  of  the  world  Guido  Lulli 
was  unlearned  as  a  child;  for  the  labors  of  earth  he  was  as 
helpless  as  any  bird  whose  wings  are  broken.  Men  would  have 
called  him  a  half-witted  fool;  in  the  days  of  Alcuin  or  of 
Hildebrand  he  would  have  been  held  a  saint;  simply,  he  was 
but  a  cripple  and  an  enthusiast,  whom  nature  had  cruelly  mal- 
treated, but  whom  genius  had  divinely  recompensed. 

At  the  opening  of  the  door  he  turned,  and  a  radiation  of 
pleasure  broke  like  sunlight  over  his  face,  while  into  his  eyes 
came  the  glorious  look  of  love  and  of  fidelity  that  beams  for 
us  in  the  clear  brown  noble  eyes  of  a  dog. 

He  strove  to  rise — to  him  a  matter  of  so  slow  and  painful 
an  effort.  Before  he  could  do  so,  Chandos  crossed  the  room 
lightly  and  swiftly,  and  laid  his  hands  on  the  musician's 
shoulders  with  a  kind  and  almost  caressing  gesture. 

"  Ah,  Lulli!  you  are  awake  and  employed  before  I  have  yefc 
been  in  bed.  You  shame  me  here  with  your  flood  of  sun- 
light. No!  do  not  rise;  do  not  leave  off;  go  on  with  the 
Tantum  Ergo  while  I  listen.     It  is  a  grand  hymn  to  the  day." 

Lulli  looked  at  him  still  with  that  loving,  reverent,  grate- 
ful look  of  a  dog's  deathless  fidelity. 

"  Monseigneur,  the  sound  of  your  voice  to  me  is  like  the 
sound  of  water  to  the  thirsty  in  a  desert  place,"  he  said, 
simply,  in  sweet,  soft.  Southern  French,  giving,  in  earnest 
veneration  to  his  host  and  master,  the  title  that  Trevenna 
often  gave  in  jest. 

Chandos  smiled  on  him — a  sunlit,  generous  smile,  gentle  as 
a  woman's. 

"  And  so  is  your  music  to  me:  so  there  is  no  debt  on  either 
side.     Go  on. " 

"  My  life  is  one  long  debt  to  you.  God  will  pay  it  to  you: 
I  never  can." 

The  words  were  heartfelt,  and  his  eyes,  looking  upward, 
still  uttered  them  with  still  more  eloquence.  Contrasc  more 
forcible  than  these,  as  they  were  now  together,  could  scarcely 
have  been  found  in  the  width  of  the  world.  The  attenuated 
and  enfeebled  cripple,  with  his  useless  limbs,  his  bowed 
shoulders,  and  his  life  worn  with  physical  suffering  that  bound 
him  like  a  captive  and  robbed  him  of  all  the  power  and  the 


CHANDOS.  73 

joy  of  existence,  beside  the  splendid  grace  of  the  man  who 
stood  above  him,  in  a  strength  too  perfect  for  dissipation  to 
leave  the  slightest  trace  of  weariness  upon  it,  and  with  a 
beauty  dazzling  as  a  woman's,  fresh  from  every  pleasure 
of  the  sight  or  sense,  and  full  of  all  the  proudest  ambi- 
tions, the  richest  enjoymeuts,  and  the  most  careless  insouciance 
of  a  superb  manhood  and  a  cloudless  fortune.  A  contrast 
more  startling  nor,  for  one,  more  bitter  could  not  have  been 
placed  side  by  side.  But  there  was  no  envy  here.  The  loyal 
gratitude  of  Lulli  had  no  jealous  taint  upon  it  that  could  have 
made  him,  even  for  one  moment,  see  anything  save  gladness 
and  gentleness  in  the  gracious  presence  of  the  man  to  whom 
l\Q  owed  more  than  existence.  He  could  no  more  have  felt 
envy  to  his  benefactor  than  he  could  have  taken  up  a  knife 
and  stabbed  him. 

Six  years  before,  traveling  through  Southern  Spain,  an  acci- 
dent to  his  carriage  had  detained  Cbandos  at  a  way-side  inn  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  Vega.  Whilingaway  the  tedium  of  such 
detention  by  sketching  an  old  Moorish  bridge  that  spanned  a 
torrent,  high  in  air,  he  heard  some  music  that  fixed  his  atten- 
tion— the  music  of  a  violin  played  with  an  exquisite  pathos. 
He  inquired  for  the  musician.  A  handsome  gitana,  with  a 
basket  of  melons  on  her  head,  gladly  answered  his  inquiries. 
The  violinist  was  a  youth  dying,  as  she  thought,  in  a  chalet 
near.  He  was  alone,  very  poor,  and  a  stranger.  The  words 
were  sufficient  to  arrest  Chandos:  he  sought  out  the  chalet 
and  found  the  musician,  lying  on  a  straw  pallet,  and  dying,  as 
the  girl  had  said,  rather  from  hunger  than  any  other  illness, 
but  with  his  large  burning  eyes  fixed  on  the  sun  that  was  set- 
ting beyond  the  screen  of  tangled  vine-leaves  that  hung  over 
the  hut-door,  and  his  hands  still  drawing  from  the  chords,  in 
wild  and  mournful  strains,  the  music  for  which  life  alone  lin- 
gered in  him.  He  was  a  mere  lad  of  twenty  years,  and  was  a 
cripple.  Chandos  only  saw  to  rescue  him.  Food,  hope,  and 
the  sound  of  a  voice  that  spoke  gently  and  pityiugly  to  him, 
fused  fresh  existence  into  the  dying  boy:  he  lived,  and  his  life 
from  that  moment  was  sheltered  by  the  man  who  had  found 
him  perishing  on  the  Spanish  hills. 

Gluido  Lulli  had  lived  in  Chandos's  household,  now  in 
town,  now  at  Clarencieux,  never  treated  as  a  dependent,  but 
surrounded  by  all  that  coidd  alleviate  or  make  him  forget  his 
calamity,  out  of  the  world  by  his  own  choice  as  utterly  as 
though  he  were  in  a  monaster}',  spending  his  days  and  nights 
over  his  organ  and  his  music-score,  and  never  having  harder 
task  than  to  organize  the  music  of  those  concerts  and  operas 


74  CHAlfDOS. 

iu  the  private  theater  at  Clarencieux  for  which  his  patron's 
entertainments  were  noted. 

Guido  Lulli's  was  far  from  the  only  life  that  Chandos,  the 
pleasure- seeker  and  the  voluptuary,  had  redeemed,  defended, 
and  saved. 

Obedient  to  his  wish,  the  melody  of  the  Catholic  chant 
rolled  through  the  stillness  of  the  early  morning,  suceeding 
strangely  to  the  wit,  the  laughter,  the  revelry,  and  the  hazard 
of  a  few  moments  previous.  It  was  precisely  such  a  succes- 
sion of  contrasts  of  which  his  life  was  made  up,  and  which  gave 
it  its  vivid  and  unfading  color:  closely  interwoven,  and  ever 
trenching  one  upon  another,  the  meditati\^e  charm  of  art  and 
of  thought  succeeded  with  him  to  the  pleasures  of  the  world. 
lie  would  j)ass  from  all  the  intoxication  and  indulgence  of  an 
Alcibiades  to  all  the  thoughtful  solitude  of  an  Augustine;  and 
it  was  this  change,  so  complete  and  so  perpetually  variable, 
which,  while  it  was  produced  by  the  mutability  of  his  tem- 
perament, made  in  a  large  degree  the  utter  absence  in  his  life 
of  all  knowledge  of  satiety,  all  touch  of  weariness. 

He  listened  now,  leaning  his  arm  on  the  sill  of  the  open 
window  that  looked  out  upon  the  gardens  below,  fresh,  even 
in  town,  with  the  breath  of  the  spring  on  their  limes  and 
acacias,  and  the  waking  song  of  the  nest-birds  greeting  the 
day.  The  rolling  notes  of  the  organ  pealed  out  in  all  their 
solemnity,  the  cathedral  rhythm  swelling  out  upon  the  silence 
of  the  dawn,  that  had  been  heard  by  him  so  often  iu  the  splen- 
dor of  St.  Peter's  at  Easter-time,  in  the  hush  of  Notre  Dame 
at  midnight  mass,  and  in  the  stillness  of  Benedictine  and 
Cistercian  chapels  in  the  chestnut-woods  of  Tuscany  and  the 
lonely  mountain-sides  of  hill-locked  Austrian  lakes.  A  thou- 
sand memories  of  foreign  air  were  in  the  deep-drawn  and 
melodious  chords;  a  thousand  echoes  of  the  dead  glories  of 
medigeval  Eome  rose  with  the 

"  Tan  turn  ergo  Sacramentum 
Veneremur  cernui." 

A  helpless  and  fragile  cripple  in  the  world,  no  stronger 
than  a  reed,  and  ignorant  of  all  things  save  his  art,  once  be- 
fore his  organ,  once  in  the  moment  of  his  insj)iration,  Guido 
Lulli  had  the  grandeur  of  a  master,  the  force  and  the  omnipo- 
tence of  a  king.  In  his  realm  he  reigned  supreme,  and  Chan- 
dos not  seldom  left  his  titled  associates  and  his  careless  pleas- 
ures to  come  and  listen  to  these  melodies  in  his  protege's  still, 
monastical  chamber,  as  he  heard  them  now. 

He  leaned    against   the  embrasure,  looking   out  into  the 


CHANDOS.  75 

tangled  mass  of  leaves  beneath,  and  letting  his  thoughts  float 
dreamily  down  the  stream  of  sound,  blent  with  the  luster  of 
the  smiling  eyes  and  the  gleam  of  the  imperial  beauty  that 
had  newly  caught  his  memory  and  his  fancy.  Entangled 
with  the  imaginations  of  his  own  Byzantine  poem,  she  haunted 
iiim  with  that  early  careless  whisper,  soft,  idle,  and  painless, 
of  love  in  its  first  moments — love  that  is  but  a  mere  moment- 
ary, passionate  impulse  and  may  never  ripen  to  more.  The 
lull  of  early  morning,  the  measure  of  the  music  passing  on- 
ward without  pause  into  the  masses  of  Mozart  and  Mendelssohn, 
fell  gently  and  mellowly  on  him  after  the  crowded  hours  of 
the  past  night  and  day.  As  the  chords  thrilled  through  the 
silence  of  the  breaking  day,  joining  the  clear  notes  of  the 
awakening  birds  beneath  amidst  the  leaves,  his  thoughts  wan- 
dered away,  dreamy  and  disconnected,  ranging  over  the  cloud- 
less years  of  a  successful  life,  in  which  all  the  memories  were 
painted  as  with  an  Elizabethan  pencil,  without  shadow.  In 
them  he  had  never  known  one  gray  touch  of  disappointment, 
far  less  still  one  dark  taint  of  calamity;  in  them  woman's  lips 
had  never  betrayed  him,  nor  man's  hand  been  raised  against 
him.  Fortune  had  favored  and  the  world  had  loved  him.  No 
regret  lay  on  him,  and  no  unfulfilled  desire  left  its  trail. 
There  was  nothing  in  his  career  he  wished  undone;  there 
were  no  memories  in  it  that  it  would  have  been  pain  to  open; 
there  were  no  pages  of  it  that  were  not  bright  with  soft,  rich, 
living  color.  He  had  passed  through  life  having  escaped  sin- 
gularly all  the  shadows  that  lie  on  it  for  most  men;  and  he  had, 
far  more  than  most,  what  may  be  termed  the  faculty  for  hap- 
piness, a  gift,  in  any  temperament,  whose  wisdom  and  whose 
beauty  the  world  too  little  recognizes. 

His  thoughts,  floating  on  with  the  melodious  chords  that 
swelled  in  wave  on  wave  of  sound  through  the  quiet  of  the 
morning,  drifted  back  by  some  unfollowed  chain  of  associa- 
tion to  the  remembrance  of  the  hot  autumn  sunset  at  Claren- 
cieux,  when,  as  a  child,  he  had  dreamed  his  chivalric  fancies 
over  the  story  of  Arthur,  and  had  told  his  father  what  his 
future  should  be. 

"  Have  I  kept  my  word?"  he  mused,  as  he  leaned  his  arms 
on  the  embrasure  of  the  window,  while  the  early  light  fell  on 
the  gold  and  the  jewels  of  his  Plantagenet  masquerade-dress. 

The  lofty,  idealic,  imposriible  dreams,  so  glorious  in  their 
impracticability,  so  fair  in  thtir  sublime  folly,  in  which  boyhood 
had  aspired  to  a  soilless  fame  and  an  heroic  sovereignty  such 
as  this  earth  has  never  seen  and  never  can  see,  recurred  to 
him  with  something  that  was  almost,  for  the  moment,  a  pass- 


76  CHANDOS. 

ing  sadness — the  same  sadness  which,  in  the  words  of  Jean 
Paul,  lies  in  music,  "  because  it  speaks  to  us  of  things  that  in 
all  our  life  we  find  not,  and  never  shall  find." 

"  Have  I  kept  my  word?"  he  thought.  "  I  rule  the  world 
of  pleasure;  but  I  meant  then  a  wider  world  than  that.  They 
follow  me  because  I  lead  the  fashion;  because  I  amuse  them 
better  than  any  other;  because  they  gain  some  distinction  by 
cutting  their  coats  and  wearing  their  wristbands  like  mine; 
but  that  is  not  the  fame  either  he  or  I  meant  in  those  years. 
They  talk  of  me;  they  imitate  me;  they  obey  me;  they  quote 
me;  they  adore  my  works,  and  they  court  my  approbation. 
But  am  I  very  much  more,  after  all,  than  a  mere  idler?" 

The  genius  latent  in  him,  which  in  his  present  life  only 
found  careless  expression  in  glittering  bagatelles  and  poems, 
half  Lucretian,  half  Catullan,  stirred  in  liim  now  with  that 
restlessness  for  higher  goals,  that  refused  to  be  satisfied  with 
actual  and  present  achievement,  which  characterize  genius  in 
all  its  forms — that  unceasing  and  irrepressible  "  striving 
toward  the  light  "  which  pursued  Goethe  throughout  life  and 
was  upon  his  lips  in  death.  Dissatisfaction  in  no  shape  ever 
touched  Chandos;  his  years  were  too  cloudless,  and  too  full  of 
fairest  flavor,  for  discontent  ever  to  be  known  in  them.  It 
was  but  rarely,  now  and  then,  when,  in  the  pauses  of  his 
pleasures  and  his  fam^e,  the  remembrance  of  his  childhood's 
grand,  visionary,  impalpable  ambitions  came  back  to  him,  that 
the  thought  swept  across  him  of  having  insufficiently  realized 
them,  of  having  been  in  some  sort  untrue  to  them,  of  losing 
in  a  dazzling  celebrity  the  loftier  purity  of  those  early  and 
impossible  dreams. 

It  was  not  wholly  true,  nor  wholly  just  toward  himself. 
Egotism  had  little  place  in  his  life:  full  though  it  was  of  a 
Greek-like  softness  and  Greek-like  idolatry  of  beauty  and  of 
pleasure,  of  an  Epicureanism  that  shunned  all  pain  and  ab- 
horred all  roughness  and  all  harshness,  the  calamities  of  others 
were  widely  succored  by  him,  and  the  bead-roll  was  long  of 
those  who  owed  him  the  most  generous  gifts  that  man  can 
owe  to  man.  He  enjoyed,  but  he  never  forgot  that  others 
suffered.  He  loved  the  ease,  the  beauty,  and  the  serenity  of 
existence;  but  he  also  did  his  uttermost  that  others  should 
know  them  too. 

"I  enjoy,''  he  thought  now,  as  he  leaned  out  into  the 
morning  sunshine.  "It  is  the  supreme  wisdom  of  life,  and 
the  best  gift  of  the  gods  is  to  know  it!  The  Greeks  were 
right,  and  in  this  age  men  remember  it  too  little.  Old  Guy 
Patin  was  a  million  times  wiser  than  all  the  Frondeurs,  sitting 


CHANDOS.  71 

under  the  summer-shade  of  his  Cormeille  cherry-trees  with  Lu- 
cretius and  Lucilius  atid  Antoninus,  wiiile  his  friends  killed 
each  other  with  fret  and  fume.  Bonaparte  said,  '  I  have  con- 
quered Cairo,  Milan,  and  Paris  in  less  than  two  years,  and  yet 
if  I  died  to-morrow  I  should  only  get  half  a  page  in  any 
biographical  dictionary;  but  to  get  a  line,  or  even  only  to 
get  an  obituary  notice  and  oblivion,  men  toil  a  life  away  and 
consume  their  years  in  thankless,  grinding,  ceaseless  labor. 
The  benighted  opticism  of  vanity!  'The  succession  of  the 
nations  is  but  as  a  torch-race.'  What  is  it  to  feed  the  flame 
of  one  of  the  torches  for  a  passing  second— a  spark  that  flames 
and  dies?  The  Greek  ideal  of  Dionysus,  with  the  ivy  on  his 
brow  and  the  thyrsus  in  his  hand,  bringing  joy  wherever  he 
moved,  while  the  wine  flowed  and  nature  bloomed  wherever 
the  god's  foot  fell,  is  the  ideal  of  the  really  happy  life,  the  life 
that  knows  how  to  enjoy." 

The  thoughts  drifted  through  his  mind  lightly,  dreamily,  as 
the  swell  of  the  organ-notes  poured  on.  It  was  true,  he  en- 
joyed, and  his  temper,  like  the  temper  of  the  Greeks,  asked 
only  this  of  life. 

Chandos  was  not  only  famous,  not  only  gifted,  not  only 
steeped  to  the  lips  in  delicate  and  sensuous  delight;  he  was 
much  more  than  all  these:  he  was  happy. 

How  many  lives  can  say  that? 

The  music  paused  suddenly,  dropping  down  in  its  gorgeous 
festival  of  sound  as  a  lark  suddenly  drops  to  the  grass  in  the 
midst  of  its  flood  of  song.  Chandos  turned  as  it  ceased,  and 
broke  his  idle  thread  of  musing  revery,  while  he  laid  his  hand 
gently  on  the  musician's  shoulder. 

"  Dear  Lulli,  while  one  hears  your  music,  one  is  in  Avil- 
lion.  You  make  me  dream  of  the  old  serene  and  sacred 
I/eipaTa  y(Urjg.  Tell  me,  have  you  everything  you  wish?  Is 
there  nothing  that  can  bring  you  more  pleasure?" 

Guido  Lulli  shook  his  head,  lifting  uj)  his  lustrous  Southern, 
antelope  eyes — the  eyes  of  Provence — with  the  fidelity  and 
gratitude  that  were  rivaled  in  him  by  his  art  alone. 

"  1  should  be  little  worthy  all  I  owe  to  you,  if  I  could  find 
one  want  unsatisfied. " 

"Owe!  You  owe  me  nothing.  Who  would  give  me  such 
music  as  you  can  give?  It  is  not  every  one  who  is  fortunate 
enough  to  have  a  Mozart  in  his  house.  I  wish  I  could  serve 
you  better  in  the  search  that  is  nearest  your  heart.  We  have 
done  all  we  could,  Guido." 

His  voice  was  very  gentle,  and  had  a  certain  hesitation.  He 
approached  a  subject  that  had  a  bitterness  both  of  grief  and 


78  CSANDOS, 

of  shame  to  his  listener;  and  Chandos,  carelessly  disdainful 
of  a  priuce's  wishes,  was  careful  of  the  slightest  jar  that  could 
wound  the  sensitiveness  of  the  man  who  was  dependent  on 
him. 

Lulli's  head  sunk,  and  a  dark  shadow  passed  over  his  face 
— a  flush  of  shame  and  of  anger,  as  heavy  and  as  passionate 
as  could  arise  in  a  temperament  so  visionary  and  tender  to 
feminine  softness,  mingled,  too,  with  a  sorrow  far  deeper  than 
wrath  can  reach. 

"  It  is  enough,"  he  said,  simply,  his  words  hushed,  low,  and 
hitter  in  his  throat.     "  We  are  certain  of  her  shame.*' 

''  Not  certain,"  said  Chandos,  compassionately,  while  his 
hand  still  lay  lightly  on  the  musician's  shoulder.  "  Where 
there  is  doubt  there  is  always  hope;  and  judgment  should 
never  be  passed  till  everything  is  known.  Do  not  be  harsh  to 
her,  even  in  thought,'" 

"Harsh?    Am  I  harsh? *' 

LuUi^s  head  drooped  till  it  rested  on  his  hands,  while  in  the 
accent  of  the  words  there  was  a  grief  beyond  all  words,  and  a 
self-reproach  piteous  in  its  contrition. 

"  Not  in  your  heart  ever,  1  know,*'  said  Chandos,  with 
that  almost  caressing  tenderness  of  pity  which  always  came 
upon  him  for  this  child-like  and  unworldly  visionary,  who  felt 
so  passionately  yet  could  only  act  so  feebly. 

"  Not  to  her,  not  to  her — no!"  murmured  the  Provengal, 
wliiile  his  face  was  still  sunk  on  his  hands;  "  but  to  Mm.  Not 
e\en  to  know  his  name;  not  even  to  know  where  he  harbors; 
not  to  tell  where  she  is,  that  when  she  is  deserted  and  wretched 
she  might  be  saved  from  lower  depths  still!" 

A  terrible  pain  shook  and  stifled  his  voice,  and  Chandos  was 
silent.  The  musician's  sorrow  was  one  to  which  no  consola- 
tion could  be  offered  and  no  hope  suggested. 

"  I  have  had  all  done  to  trace  her  that  is  possible,"  he  said, 
at  last;  "  but  two  years  have  passed,  and  there  seems  no  chance 
of  ever  succeeding;  all  clew  appears  lost.  Do  you  think  that 
she  may  have  gone  by  another  name  at  the  time  that  her  lover, 
whoever  he  may  be,  first  saw  her?" 

"  It  is  possible,  mouseigneur;  I  can  not  tell,**  said  Lulli, 
slowly,  with  a  pathos  of  weariness  more  touching  than  all 
complaint  and  lament.  "  Be  it  as  it  will,  she  is  dead  to  me; 
but — but — if  we  could  know  liim,  helpless  cripple  as  I  am,  I 
■would  find  strength  enough  to  avenge  my  wrong  and  hers.** 

He  raised  himself  us  he  said  it,  his  slight,  bent  form  quiver- 
ing and  instinct  with  sudden  force,  his  pale  and  hollow  cheek 


CHANDOS.  79 

flushed,  his  eyes  kindling.  It  was  like  electric  vitality  flashing 
for  one  brief  moment  into  a  dead  man's  limbs. 

•Chandos  looked  at  him  with  a  profound  pity.  To  him,  a 
man  of  the  world,  a  courtier,  a  lover  of  pleasure,  the  un- 
tutored, chivalrous  simplicity  of  this  idealist  roused  infinite 
compassion.  He  saw  brought  home  to  Guido  Lulli,  as  a  ter- 
rible and  heart-burning  anguish,  those  amours  which  in  his 
own  world  and  his  own  life  v/ere  but  the  caprice  and  amuse- 
ment of  idle  hours,  the  subject  of  a  gay,  indiiferent  jest.  He 
had  never  before  reflected  how  much  these  careless  toys  may 
chance  to  cost  in  their  recoil  to  others. 

He  leaned  his  hand  with  a  warmer  pressure  on  the  musician's 
shoulder. 

"  I  wish  I  could  aid  you  more,  Guido;  but  there  is  nothing 
that  I  know  of  that  has  been  left  untried.  Strive  to  forget 
both:  neither  is  worth  enough  to  give  you  pain.  You  believe 
at  least  that  I  have  had  every  effort  used  for  you,  although  it 
has  been  in  va-n?" 

Lulli  looked  at  him  with  a  slight  smile— a  smile  that  passed 
over  the  suffering  and  the  momentary  passion  on  his  face  like 
an  irradiation  of  light.  It  was  so  full  of  sublime  and  entire 
faith. 

"  Believe  you,  monseigneur?     Yes,  as  I  believe  in  God." 

It  was  the  simple  truth,  and  paid  back  to  Chandos  his  own 
love  for  men,  and  faith  in  them,  in  his  own  coin.  He  was 
touched  by  the  naif  words. 

"  I  thank  you.  I  am  your  debtor,  then,  Lulli,"  he  said, 
gently.  "  I  must  leave  you  now,  or  I  shall  have  no  sleep 
before  the  day  is  fairly  up;  but  I  will  see  you  again  some  time 
during  the  morning.  If  you  think  of  anything  that  has  not 
been  done,  or  might  be  done  again,  with  any  hope  to  find 
Valeria,  tell  me,  and  I  will  give  directions  for  it.     Adieu!" 

He  left  the  chamber,  the  flash  of  his  diamonds  and  the  im- 
perial blue  of  his  dress  glancing  bright  in  the  beams  of  the 
young  day.  Lulli  turned  his  head,  and  followed  him  with  the 
wistful  gaze  that  seemed  to  come  from  so  far  a  distance — fol- 
lowed him  as  the  eyes  of  a  dog  follow  the  shadow  of  its  master. 

"  So  generous,  so  pitiful,  so  gentle,  so  noble!  If  I  could 
only  live  to  repay  him!"  he  murmured,  half  aloud,  as  the  door 
closed  upon  the  kingly  grace  and  splendid  manhood  of  his 
savior  and  his  solitary  friend.  Vast  as  was  the  contrast,  hope- 
lessly wide  as  was  the  disparity,  between  them,  there  was  not 
one  pang  of  jealousy  in  the  loyal  heart  of  the  crippled 
musician. 

Then,   with  the  last  echo  of  his  patrwi's  step,  his  head 


80  CHANDOS. 

drooped  again,  and  the  listless,  lifeless  passiveness,  the  weary 
and  suffering  indiffei'ence,  which  always  lay  so  heavily  upon 
him,  save  at  such  times  when  his  affections  or  his  art  struck 
new  vitality  through  him,  returned  once  more,  while  his 
fingers  lay  motionless  ujDon  the  ivory  keys.  Although  happy 
(as  far  as  happiness  could  be  in  common  with  his  shattered 
and  stricken  life)  in  the  artistic  seclusion  in  which  he  was 
allowed  to  dwell,  and  in  the  unbroken  pursuit  of  his  art  which 
Chandos  enabled  him  to  enjoy,  there  was  one  sorrow  on 
him  weightier  than  any  of  his  personal  afflictions. 

The  only  thing  that  had  ever  loved  him  was  a  child,  several 
years  younger  than  himself,  his  cousin,  orphaned  and  penni- 
less like  himself,  a  bright,  caressing  child,  to  keep  whom  in 
some  poor  shape  of  comfort  in  their  old  home  of  Aries  LuUi 
had  beggared  his  own  poverty  till — sending  to  her  every  coin 
that  he  possessed — he  had  been  near  his  grave  from  sheer  fam- 
ine when  Chandos  had  found  him  among  the  hills  of  the  Vega. 
Tor  some  time  he  had  never  mentioned  the  name  of  Valeria  to 
his  patron,  from  the  shrinking  and  sensitive  delicacy  of  his 
nature,  which  dreaded  to  press  another  supplicant  and  de- 
pendent on  his  patron's  charity.  All  he  could  give  (and 
Ohandos's  provision  for  him  made  that  now  not  inconsiderable 
— indeed,  what  seemed  a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  simplicity  of  the 
Proven9al)  he  sent  to  Aries  for  Valeria  Lulli,  who  was  lodged 
with  an  old  cauoness  of  the  city,  and  began  to  be  noted  as  she 
grew  older,  as  the  most  perfect  contralto  in  the  girls'  choir  in 
all  Southern  France.  See  her  he  could  not;  a  sense  of  duty 
to  the  man  by  whom  he  had  been  redeemed  from  death,  and 
the  infirmities  of  his  own  health,  which  that  nigh  approach  of 
death  had  more  utterly  enfeebled,  prevented  him  from  return- 
ing to  Provence.  But  he  heard  of  her;  he  heard  from  her;  he 
knew  that  she  was  drawing  near  womanhood  in  safe  shelter, 
and  a  happy,  if  obscure,  home,  through  him;  and  it  sufficed 
for  him.  His  affection  for  her  was  the  tender  solicitude  of  a 
brotlier,  shut  out  from  any  tinge  of  a  warmer  emotion,  both 
through  his  own  sense  of  how  utterly  banned  from  him  by  his 
calamity  was  all  thought  of  woman's  love,  and  through  his 
own  memory  of  Valeria,  which  was  but  of  a  fair  and  loving 
child. 

Two  years  before  this  morning  in  which  Chandos  had  list- 
ened to  the  Tantum  Ergo,  a  heavy  blow  fell  on  the  musician, 
smiting  down  all  the  fond,  vague  thoughts  with  which  he  had 
associated  Valeria's  dawning  womanhood  with  the  dawning 
success  of  his  own  ambition  in  his  art.  A  long  silence  had 
passed  by,  bringing  no  tidings  of  her,  when  his  anxiety  grew 


CHAKDOS.  81 

uncontrollable  and  knew  itself  powerless;  he  had  passionately 
repented  of  the  silence  he  had  preserved  on  her  name  to  \m 
only  friend.     He  inquired  tidings  of  the  canoness,  but  received 
none.     Chandos  was  away,  yachting  in  the  Mediterranean,  and 
spending  the  late  summer  and  the  autumn  in  the  East:  the 
winter  also  he  spent  in  Paris.     When,  with  the  spring,  Lulli 
saw  him  once  more,  he  told  him  then  of  Valeria,  and  entreated 
his  aid  to  learn  the  cause  of  the  silence  that  had  fallen  between 
him  and  Aries.     Chandos  gave  it  willingly;  he  sent  his  own 
courier  abroad  to  inquire  for  the  young  choral  singer.     All 
answer  with  which  he  returned  was  that  the  canoness  had  died 
in  the  course  of  that  summer,  that  Valeria  Lulli  had  disap- 
peared from  the  city,  and  that  neither  priest  nor  layman  could 
tell  more,  save  that  it  was  the  general  supposition  she  had 
fled  with  a  handsome  Milord  Anglais  who  had  visited  the  ca- 
thedral, heard  her  singing,  learned  her  residence,  and  visited 
her  often  during  the  summer  mouths.     He  too  had  left  Aries 
without  any  one  remembering  his  name  or  knowing  where  he 
had  gone.     The  gossips  of  the  still  solemn  old  Eoman  city  had 
noted  him  often  with  Valeria  at  vesper-time,  and  underneath 
the   vine-hung,  gray-stone    coping    of    her  casement   in  the 
canoness's  little  fourelle.     And  Valeria  had  grown  up  into  all 
the  rich  traditional  beauty  of  the  magnificent  women  of  Aries. 
So  the  history  ran — brief,  but  telling  a  world.      To  Guido 
Lulli  there  was  room  neither  for  doubt  nor  hope;  it  was  plain 
as  the  daylight  to  him,  and  needed  not  another  line  added  to 
it.     It  cut  him  to  the  heart.  Shame  for  the  honor  of  his  name, 
which,  though  sunk  into  poverty,  claimed  descent  from  him 
whose  divine  strains  once  floated  down  the  rose-aisles  of  Ver- 
sailles;   passionate  bitterness  against  the   unknown  stranger 
who  had  robbed  him;    grief  for  the  loss  and  dishonor  of  the 
one  whom  he  had  cherished  from  her  childhood — all  these  were 
terrible  to  him;  but  they  were  scarcely  so  cruel  as  the  sting  of 
ingratitude  from  a  life  that  he  alone  had  supported,  and  for 
which  he  had  endured,  through  many  years,  deprivations  un- 
counted and  solicitude  unwearying.     He  said  but  little,  but 
the  iron  went  down  deep  into  his  gentle,  suffering  nature,  and 
left  a  wound  there  that  was  never  closed. 

No  more  had  ever  been  learned  of  the  fate  of  Valeria;  it 
sunk  into  silence,  and  all  the  efforts  exerted  by  his  iVatron's 
wealth  and  by  the  ingenuity  of  his  hirelings  failed  to  bring  one 
light  on  the  surface  of  the  darkness  that  covered  her  lost  life. 
As  Lulli  had  said,  she  was  dead  to  him.  But  the  pain  she 
;had  dealt  was  living,  and  would  live  long.  Natures  like  Lulli's 
gaffer  silently,  but  suffer  greatly;  and  now,  when  the  monas- 


82  CHANDOS. 

tical  silence  closed  ia  again  around  him  as  tlie  sound  of  Chan- 
dos's  steps  died  off  the  morning  stillness,  and  the  early  rays 
only  strayed  on  the  ivory  whiteness  of  the  carved  Passion  above 
the  little  shrine  of  his  antique  chamber,  he  sat  there,  listless 
and  lost  in  thought,  his  head  sunk,  his  hands  resting  immova- 
ble upon  the  keys  with  wdiich  he  could  give  out  fit  music  for 
the  gods,  the  sadness  on  him  which  ever  oppressed  him  when 
he  came  back  from  his  own  best  beloved  world  of  melodious 
sound  into  the  coarse,  harsh,  weary  world  of  fact  and  of  ex- 
istence. 

He  thought  of  the  bright  Southern  child  whose  desolate  life 
he  had  succored,  as  he  had  used  to  see  her,  with  the  sunlight 
on  her  hair  while  she  gathered  bowing  crowns  of  summer  lihes, 
and  feathery  wealth  of  seeding  grasses,  among  the  giant  ruins 
of  the  Roman  Amjjhitheater,  where  the  Gaul  and  the  Frank, 
the  Latin  and  the  Greek,  lay  moldering  in  the  community  of 
death,  while  the  arrowy  Rhone  flashed  its  azure  in  the  light, 
and  the  purple  graioes  grew  mellow  in  the  golden  languor  of  a 
Southern  noon. 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

LATET  ANGUTS   IN   HERBA. 

"  Lots  of  news!'*  said  Trevenna,  crushing  np  a  pile  of 
journals,  as  he  sat  at  breakfast  in  Park  Lane — his  second 
breakfast,  of  course,  for  which  he  commonly  dropped  in  as 
Chandos  was  taking  his  first.  He  managed  all  his  friend's 
concerns,  both  monetary  and  household,  both  in  town,  in  Parir,, 
and  at  Clarencieux,  and  had  always  something  or  other  oa 
which  to  confer  with  his  patron  at  the  only  hour  in  the  day  at 
which  Chandos  was  ever  likely  to  be  found  disengaged;  some 
stud  fi'om  which  to  suggest  a  purchase;  some  new  pictures 
coming  to  the  hammer,  of  which  to  bring  a  catalogue;  some 
signature  to  a  check  or  deed  to  require;  or  some  expensive 
temptation  to  suggest  to  one  who,  as  he  well  knew,  had  never 
been  taught  providence  and  never  been  accustomed  to  resist 
either  pleasure  or  inclination.  This  last  was  a  Mephistophe- 
lian  occupation  to  which  Trevenna  was  specially  suited.  He 
tempted  delightfully,  always  putting  in  just  so  much  of  ban- 
tering dissuasion  to  enhance  the  charm,  and  spur  on  the  tempt- 
ed, as  would  furnish  the  truffles  to  the  game,  till  the  tnq^'e 
he  held  out  became  irresistible. 

"  Lots  of  news!"  he  cried,  now  washing  the  quantity  down 
ynth.  a  draught  of  Yquem,     "  Queer  thing  a  paper  is;  a  sort 


CHANDOS.  83 

of  prosaic  phenix,  eh?  Kings  die,  ministers  die,  editors  go 
to  pot,  its  staff  drops  under  the  sod,  governments  smash,  na- 
tions swamp,  actors  change;  but  on  goes  the  paper,  coming  out 
imperturbably  every  morning.  Nothing  disturbs  it;  deaths  en- 
rich it;  wars  enlarge  it;  if  a  royal  head  goes  into  the  grave,  it 
politely  prints  itself  with  a  blacii  border  by  way  of  gratifying 
his  soul,  and  sells  itself  to  extreme  advantage  with  a  neat  dove- 
tailing of  '  Le  roi  est  mort,'  and  '  Vive  le  roi/  Queer  thing, 
a  jDaperl" 

"A  melancholy  thing  in  that  light,"  said  Chandos,  as  he 
drank  his  chocolate,  "  To  think  of  the  swarm  of  striving  life 
pressed  into  a  single  copy  of  the  '  Times '  is  as  mournful  as 
Xerxes's  crowds  under  Mount  Ida,  though  certainly  not  so  po- 
etic/' 

"Mournful?  Don't  see  it,''  responded  Trevenna,  who 
never  did  see  anything  mournful  in  life  except  the  miserable 
mistake  by  which  he  had  not  been  born  a  millionaire.  "  It's 
rather  amusing  to  see  all  the  potlier  and  bother,  and  koow 
that  they'll  all  be  dead,  every  man  of  'em,  fifty  years  hence; 
because  one  always  has  an  unuttered  conviction  that  some 
miracle  will  happen  by  which  one  won't  die  one's  self.  How 
thoroughly  right  Lucretius  is!  it  is  so  pleasant  to  see  other 
men  in  a  storm  while  one's  high  and  dry  beyond  the  reach  of  a 
drop;  and  to  watch  them  all  rushing  and  scuttling  through  life 
in  the  '  Times  '  columns  is  uncommonly  like  watching  them 
rush  through  a  tempest.  You  know  they'll  all  of  them  get 
splashed  to  the  skin,  and  not  one  in  ten  thousand  reach  their 
goal." 

Chandos  laughed. 

"  But  when  you  are  in  the  tempest,  my  friend,  I  fancy  you 
would  be  very  glad  of  a  little  more  sympathy  than  you  give, 
and  would  be  very  grateful  for  an  umbrella?" 

"  Oh,  the  devil  take  sympathy!     Give  me  success." 

"  The  selection  is  not  new!     But  in  defeat — " 

"  In  defeat?  let  it  go  ten  leagues  further  to  the  deuce! 
Sympathy  in  success  might  be  genuine;  people  would  scram- 
ble for  the  bonbons  I  dropped;  but  sympathy  in  defeat  was 
never  anything  better  than  a  sneer  delicately  veiled. " 

"  Poor  humanity!  You  will  allow  nothing  good  to  come 
out  of  Nazareth;  a  sweeping  verdict,  when  by  Nazareth  you 
mean  mankind.  Well,  1  would  rather  give  twenty  rogues 
credit  for  being  honest  men  than  wrong  one  honest  man  by 
thinking  him  a  rogue.  To  think  evil  unjustly  is  to  create 
evil;  to  think  too  well  of  a  man  may  end  in  making  him  what 
you  have  called  him." 


Si  CHANDOS. 

Trevenua  smiled — his  arch,  humorous  smile,  that  danced  in 
the  mirth  of  bis  eyes,  and  twinkled  so  joyously  and  mischiev- 
iously  about  the  corners  of  his  mouth. 

"  If  it  be  your  jireference  to  think  too  well  of  men,  tres  cher, 
you  can  hardly  miss  gratifying  it.  Kogues  grow  thick  as 
blackberries.  Only  when  Turcaret,  whom  you  think  the  mir- 
ror of  honor,  makes  you  bankrupt,  and  Gingillino,  whom  you 
believe  the  soul  of  probity,  makes  off  with  your  plate,  and 
Tartuffe,  whom  you  have  deemed  a  saint  of  the  first  water, 
forges  a  little  bill  on  your  name,  blame  nobody  but  your  own 
delightful  and  expensive  optimism;  that's  all!  Don't  you 
know  you  think  too  well  of  me  ?" 

There  was  a  shade  of  earnestness  and,  for  the  instant,  of  re- 
gret in  his  bold,  bright  eyes,  as  they  fastened  themselves  on 
Chandos's;  there  was,  for  the  moment,  one  faint  impulse  of 
compunction  and  of  conscience  in  his  heart.  He  knew  that 
the  man  before  him  trusted  him  so  utterly,  so  loyally;  he 
knew  that  the  witness  of  the  world  to  sink  and  shame  him 
would  only  have  made  the  hand  of  Ernest  Chandos  close  firmer 
on  his  own.  That  hand  was  stretched  out  now  in  a  gesture  of 
generous,  frank  grace,  of  true  and  gallant  friendship.  The 
action  was  very  rare  with  Chandos,  and  sjDoke  with  a  great 
eloq  uence. 

"  You  know  I  have  no  fear  of  that.  Oar  friendship  is  of 
too  old  a  date." 

Trevenna  hesitated  a  moment,  one  slight,  impalpable  sec- 
ond of  time,  not  to  be  counted,  not  to  be  noted;  then  his 
hand  closed  on  that  held  out  to  him. 

The  momentary  better  thought  had  gone  from  him.  When 
he  took  the  hand  of  Chandos  thus,  few  criminals  had  ever 
fallen  lower  than  he.  Were  Catholic  fancies  true,  and 
"guardian  angels  with  us  as  we  walk,"  his  guardian  spirit 
would  have  left  Trevenna  then  forever. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  with  his  mirthful  and  ringing  laugh,  like 
his  voice,  clear  and  resonant  as  a  clarion,  "  you  found  me  in 
no  irreproachable  place,  mon  prince,  at  any  rate:  so  you  can't 
complain  if  I  turn  out  a  scamp.  A  debtor's  prison  wasn't 
precisely  the  place  for  the  Lord  of  Clarencieux  to  choose  an 
ally." 

"  Many  a  '  Lord  of  .Clarencieux  '  has  gamed  away  his  wit 
and  his  wealth — which  was  your  only  sin  then,  my  dear  fellow. 
I  am  not  afraid  of  the  consequences.  So  many  people  who 
speak  well  of  themselves  are  worth  nothing,  that  by  inverse 
ratio,  Trevenna,  you,  who  speak  so  ill  of  yourself,  must  be 
worth  a  great  deal.     You  look  at  some  things  from  too  low  a 


CHANDOS.  85 

standing-point,  to  my  fancy,  to  be  sure;  but  you  see  as  high 
as  your  stature  will  let  you,  I  suppose." 

"Of  course.  Literally  and  meta[)horically,  you're  a  very 
tall  man,  and  I'm  a  very  short;  and,  literally  and  metapJioric- 
ally,  if  you  see  stars  I  don't,  I  see  puddles  you  don't;  if  you 
watch  for  planets  I  forget,  I  watch  for  quicksands  you  forget. 
My  stature  will  be  the  more  useful  of  the  two  in  the  end. 
Apropos  of  quicksands,  the  first  architect  of  them  in  the 
country  was  magnificent  on  the  Cat  Tax,  last  night. " 

"Who?     Milverton?" 

"Yes,  Milvertonl  As  if  you'd  forgotten  who  was  Ex- 
chequer! If  he  were  a  handsome  coryphee  now,  you'd  be  eager 
to  hear  every  syllable  about  the  debut.  The  speech  was  su- 
perb! To  hear  him!  he  drew  the  line  so  admirably  between 
the  necessary  and  humble  mouser,  help-mate  of  the  housewife, 
and  the  pampered,  idle  Angora,  fed  on  panada  and  kept  from 
caprice;  he  touched  so  inimitably  on  the  cat  in  Egypt  and 
Cyprus,  tracing  the  steps  by  which  a  deity  had  become  a 
drudge,  and  the  once-sacred  life  been  set  to  preserve  the 
pantries  from  mice;  he  threw  so  choice  a  sop  to  the  Exeter 
Hall  party  by  alluding  to  its  fall  as  a  meet  judgment  on  a 
heathen  deity,  and  richly  merited  by  a  creature  that  was  men- 
tioned in  Herodotus  and  not  in  the  Bible;  he  sprinkled  the 
whole  so  classically  with  Greek  quotations  that  it  greatly  im- 
posed the  House,  and  greatly  posed  it,  its  members  having  de- 
rived hazy  Attic  notions  from  Greek  cribs  at  the  'Varsities 
and  Grote  on  rainy  afternoons  in  the  country.  By  Jove,  the 
whole  thing  was  masterly!  The  Budget  will  pass  both  cham- 
bers." 

Chandos  laughed,  as  he  eat  the  mellowest  of  peaches. 

"  And  that  you  call  public  life?  a  slavery  to  send  straws 
down  the  wind,  and  twist  cables  of  sand!  The  other  evening  I 
drove  Milverton  to  Claire  Eahel's.  Just  at  her  door  a  hansom 
tore  after  us,  his  Whip  dashed  up;  the  House  was  about  to 
divide;  Milverton  must  go  down  directly.  And  he  went! 
There  is  an  existence  to  spend!  Fancy  the  empty  platitudes 
of  the  benches,  instead  of  the  bright  mots  at  Eahel's;  the 
empty  froth  of  place-men  patriots,  instead  of  the  tasteful  foam 
of  sparkling  Moselle!" 

"  Fy,  fy,  Chandos!  You  shouldn't  satirize  St.  Stephen's, 
out  of  filial  respect." 

"  The  St.  Stephen's  of  my  father's  days  was  a  very  different 
affair.  They  are  not  politicians  now,  they  are  only  place- 
men; they  don't  dictate  to  the  Press,  the  Press  dictates  to 
them;  they  don't  care  how  the  country  is  lowered,  they  only 


86  CHAKDOS. 

care  to  keep  in  office.  When  there  is  a  European  simoom 
blowing  through  the  House,  I  may  come  and  look  on:  so  long 
as  they  brew  storms  in  the  saucer,  I  have  no  inclination  for 
the  tea-party.     Would  you  like  public  life,  Trevenna?" 

"I?  W^hat's  the  good  of  my  liking  anything?  I'm  a 
Pariah  of  the  pave,  a  Ohicob  to  the  clubs;  I  can  only  float  my- 
self in  dinner-stories  and  gossip." 

"  Gossip!  You  inherit  the  souls  of  Pepys  and  Grimm. 
That  such  a  clever  fellow  as  you  can — " 

"  Precisely  because  I  am  a  clever  fellow  do  I  collect  what 
everybody  loves,  except  raffineurs  like  yourself.  I  am  never 
so  welcome  as  when  1  take  about  a  charmingly  chosen  bundle 
of  characters  to  be  crushed  and  reputations  to  be  cracked.  To 
slander  his  neighbor  is  indirectly  to  flatter  your  listener;  of 
course,  slander  is  welcome.  Every  one  hkes  to  hear  something 
bad  of  somebody  else;  it  enhances  his  comfort  when  he  is  com- 
fortable, and  makes  him  think  '  somebody's  worse  off  than  I 
am  '  when  he  isn't." 

Ohandos  laughed. 

"  I  wonder  if  there  were  ever  such  a  combination  of  Theo- 
phrastus's  bitterness  and  Plautus's  good  humor  in  any  living 
being  before  you,  Trevenna?  You  judge  humanity  like  Roche- 
foucauld, and  laugh  with  it  like  Ealstaff;  and  you  tell  men 
that  they  are  all  rascals  as  merrily  as  if  you  said  they  were  all 
angels." 

"  A  great  deal  more  merrily,  I  suspect.  One  can  get  a  good 
deal  of  merriment  out  of  rogues;  there  is  no  better  company 
under  the  sun;  but  angels  would  be  uncommonly  heavy  work. 
Sin's  the  best  salt. " 

"Mr.  Paul  Leslie  is  waiting,  sir,"  said  the  groom  of  the 
chambers,  approaching  his  master.  * '  He  says  that  he  comes 
by  appointment,  or — " 

"  Quite  right;  I  will  see  him  in  the  library,"  said  Cbandos, 
as  he  rose,  having  finished  his  breakfast,  and  heard  all  the 
various  things  with  which  his  prime  minister  had  come  changed. 

"  Paul  Leslie?  That's  a  new  name;  I  don't  know  it,"  said 
Trevenna,  who  made  a  point  of  knowing  every  one  who  came 
to  his  host,  no  matter  how  insignificant. 

"  Very  likely.  He  never  gives  dinners,  and  could  not  lend 
you  a  sou. " 

There  was  a  certain  careless,  disdainful  irony  in  the  words, 
half  unconscious  to  Chandos  himself.  He  had  all  the  manner 
of  the  vieille  cour,  all  its  stately  grace,  and  all  its  delicate 
disdain;  and,  cordial  as  his  regard  was  for  Trevenna,  and  sin- 
cere as  was  his  belief  that  the  bluntness  aiwi  professed  egotism 


CHANDOS.  87 

of  the  maa  covered  a  thousand  good  qualities  and  proclaimed 
a  candor  bright  and  ojjen  as  the  day,  he  was  not,  he  could  not 
be,  blind  to  the  fact  that  Trevenna  never  sought  or  heeded 
any  living  soul  except  those  who  could  benefit  him. 

"I  understand/'  laughed  Trevenna;  with  a  riding-whip 
about  his  shoulders  he  would  still  have  laughed  good-natured- 
ly. "  One  of  your  proteges,  of  course;  some-  Giotto  who  was 
drawing  sheep  when  the  Olarencieux  Cimabue  saw  him;  some 
starving  Chattertou  who  has  plucked  up  heart  of  grace  to 
write  and  ask  the  author  of  '  Lucrece '  to  give  him  the  magna 
nominis  uiiibra.  Tell  him  to  turn  navvy  or  corn-chandler, 
Chandos,  before  he  worships  the  Muses  without  having  five 
thousand  a  year  to  support  those  dissipated  ladies  upon;  and 
twenty  years  hence  he'll  thank  you  while  he  eats  his  fat  bacon 
with  a  relish  in  the  pot-house,  or  weighs  out  his  pottles  of 
barley  in  sensible  contentment." 

"  You  are  a  thorough  Englishman,  Trevenna;  you  would 
make  a  poet  an  exciseman,  and  expect  him  to  be  serenely 
grateful  for  the  patronage!  Pray,  how  many  of  those  who 
honor  '  the  Muses,'  as  you  call  them,  have  had  five  thousand 
a  year,  or  had  even  their  daily  bread  when  they  started,  for 
that  matter?  I  must  give  this  boy  his  audience,  so  I  may  not 
see  you  till  we  meet  in  the  park  or  the  clubs.  You  dine  with 
me  to-night?  There  are  a  triad  of  serene  highnesses  coming, 
and  German  royalty  is  terribly  oppressive  society." 

"  Oh,  I  will  be  here,  monseigneur;  I  obey  orders.  You 
want  me  at  your  dinners  as  Valois  wanted  Triboulet,  eh?  The 
jester  is  welcomed  for  the  nonsense  he  talks,  and  may  be  more 
familiar  than  guests  of  higher  degree.'' 

Chandos  turned  as  he  was  leaving  the  room,  struck  by  a  cer- 
tain tone  in  the  words,  all  light  and  good-humored  as  they 
were;  and  he  leaned  his  hand  on  John  Trevenna's  shoulder 
with  the  self-same  gesture  he  had  used  to  the  musician  Lulli. 

"Triboulet?  What  are  you  thinking  of  ?  Men  of  your  tal- 
ent bring  their  own  welcome,  and  are  far  more  creditor  than 
debtor  to  society.  Surely,  Trevenna,  you  never  misdoubt  the 
sincerity  of  my  friendship?" 

The  other  looked  np  with  his  bright  bonhomie. 
"  You  are  a  Sir  Calidore  of  courtesy.  No;  I  am  as  sure  of 
the  quality  of  your  friendship  as  I  am  of  the  quality  of  your 
clarets.  I  can't  say  more;  and,  as  the  world  bows  down  be- 
fore you,  the  distinction  of  it  is  very  gratifying.  Besides,  you 
have  the  best  chef  in  town;  and  I  dearly  love  a  friend  that  gives 
good  dinners. " 


88  CHANDOS. 

Chandos  laughed.  Trevenna  always  amused  him;  the  utter 
absence  of  flattery  refreshed  him,  and  he  knew  the  world  too 
well  not  to  know  that  sincerity  and  warmth  of  feeling  were 
full  as  likely  to  lie  under  the  frankly-confessed  egotism  as 
under  the  snaver  protestations  of  other  men.  Yet  the  answer 
chilled  him  ever  so  slightly,  jarred  on  him  ever  so  faintly.  A 
temperament  that  is  never  earnest  is  at  times  well  nigh  as 
wearisome  as  a  temperament  that  is  never  gay;  there  comes  a 
time  when,  if  you  can  never  touch  to  any  depth,  the  ceaseless 
froth  and  brightness  of  the  surface  will  create  a  certain  sense 
of  impatience,  a  certain  sense  of  want.  He  felt  this  for  the 
moment  with  Trevenna.  Trevenna  would  never  be  serious; 
he  never  gave  anything  deeper  than  his  merry  and  good- 
humored  banter. 

"  No  wonder  the  women  are  so  fond  of  the  caresses  of  those 
mains  blaneJies;  they  are  as  white  and  as  soft  and  as  delicate 
as  a  girrs — curse  him!'^  thought  Trevenna,  while  his  eyes 
glanced  from  Chanel os's  hand,  as  it  fell  from  his  shoulder,  and 
on  to  his  own,  which  was  broad,  strong  and  coarse,  both  in 
shape  and  in  fiber,  though  tenacious  in  hold  and  characteristic 
in  form.  The  hand  of  Chandos  was  the  hand  of  the  aristocrat 
and  of  the  artist  molded  in  one;  Trevenua's  that  of  the  work- 
iugman,  of  the  agile  gymnast,  of  the  hardy  mountain-climber. 
The  thought  was  petty  and  passionate  as  any  woman's— the 
envy  puerile  and  angered  to  a  feminine  and  childish  littleness. 
But  this  was  Trevenna's  one  weakness,  this  jealousy  of  all 
these  differences  of  caste  and  of  breeding,  as  his  sonnets  were 
Richelieu's,  as  his  paintings  were  Goethe's,  as  his  deformed 
limb  was  Byron's. 

The  warm  friendship  offered  him  and  proved  to  him  was  for- 
gotten in  the  smart  of  a  small,  wounded  vanity.  A  straw  mis- 
placed will  make  us  enemies;  a  millstone  of  benefits  hung 
about  his  neck  may  fail  to  anchor  down  by  us  a  single  friend. 
We  may  lavish  what  we  will — kindly  thought,  loyal  service, 
untiring  aid,  and  generous  deed — and  they  are  all  but  as  oil  to 
the  burning,  as  fuel  to  the  flame,  when  spent  upon  those  who 
are  jealous  of  us. 

Despite,  however,  his  hearty  curse  upon  his  host,  Trevenna 
went  on  with  his  breakfast  complacently,  while  Chandos  left 
him  to  give  audience  (and  something  more)  to  the  young 
artist,  a  clever  boy  witiiout  a  sou,  with  the  talent  of  a  Scheffer 
and  the  poverty  of  a  Chattertnn,  whom  he  was  about  to  enable 
to  study  in  peace  in  Eome.  Trevenna  was  a  sagacious  man,  a 
practical  man,  and  did  not  allow  his  own  personal  enmities, 
or  the  slight  circumstance  of  his  having  mentally  damned  the 


CHANDOS.  89 

man  whose  hospitality  he  enjoyed  to  interfere  with  his  appre- 
ciation of  liis  lobster-cutlets,  liqueurs,  pates,  and  aniontillado. 

In  truth,  to  eat  and  drink  like  Lucullus  and  Sancho  Pauza 
merged  in  one,  at  the  expense  of  Chandos,  had  a  certain  relish 
for  Trevenna  that  gave  the  meals  a  better  flavor  than  all  Du- 
bosc's  sauces  could  have  achieved.  Trevenna  was  only  the 
choicest  of  gourmets  at  table,  but  he  was  the  most  insatiable 
of  gourmands  in  enmity. 

Then,  when  he  had  fairly  finished  a  breakfast  that  would 
have  done  honor  to  the  inventions  of  a  Ude,  he  went  out  to 
the  clubs — it  was  two  o'clock  in  the  day — to  keep  up  his  rep- 
utation as  a  popular  talker,  with  a  variety  of  charming,  dam- 
aging stories,  and  inimitable  specimens  of  inventive  ingenuity 
such  as  made  him  welcome  at  all  the  best  tables,  and  well  re- 
ceived even  in  the  smoking  sanctum  of  the  Guards'  club. 
Trevenna  had  not  dined  at  his  own  expense  for  ten  years;  he 
knew  so  well  how  to  amuse  society.  His  manufactures  were 
matchless;  they  were  the  most  adroit  and  lasting  slanders  of 
all — slanders  that  had  a  foundation  of  truth. 

"  What's  up,  Charlie?  You  look  rather  blue,"  said  that 
easiest  and  most  familiar  of  "  diners-out,"  whom  no  presence 
could  awe  and  no  coolness  could  ice,  as  he  sauntered  now  down 
Pall  Mall  with  a  young  dandy  of  the  Foreign  Office,  who  had 
played  so  much  chicken  hazard  and  planned  so  many  Crown 
and  Scepter  and  Star  and  Garter  fetes  in  the  mornings  which 
he  devoted  to  the  State  that  he  had  come  to  considerable  grief 
over  "  floating  paper." 

Charlie  nodded  silently,  pulling  his  amber  mustache.  He 
was  rather  a  handsome,  gallant  young  fellow;  England  shows 
his  style  by  the  dozens  any  day  in  the  season — a  good  style, 
too,  when  it  comes  to  the  test  in  Canadian  winters,  Crimean 
ciimps  and  mountain-India  campaigns. 

"  Tiglit,  eh?  Dal  won't  bleed?"  asked  Trevenna,  with  a 
good-natured,  almost  affectionate  interest.  "  Dal  "  was  Lord 
Dallerstone,  Charlie's  elder  brother. 

"Bleed?  No.  He's  up  a  tree  himself,"  murmured  the 
victim.  "  It's  those  confounded  Tindall  &  Co.  people; 
they've  got  bills  of  mine — bought  them  in — and  tliey  put  the 
screw  on  no  end.'" 

"  Tindall  &  Co.?    Ah!    Hard  people,  ain't  they?" 

"  Devils!"  murmured  Charlie,  still  in  the  sleepiest  of  tones. 
'*  It's  that  vile  old  Jew  Mathias,  you  know;  lie's  the  firm,  no 
doubt  of  it,  though  he  keeps  it  so  dark.  '  Pay  or — '  That's 
all  they  say;  and  I've  no  more  idea  where  to  get  any  money 
than  that  pug." 


90  CHANDOS. 

"  Bought  your  paper  up?  That  is  aw^kward  work/^  said 
Trevenna,  musingly.  "  I  hardly  see  what  you  can  do.  I 
know  the  Tindall  people  are  very  sharp — old  Hebrew  beggar 
is,  as  you  say,  at  least.  How  much  breathiug-time  do  they 
give?" 

"Only  till  Thursday." 

Charlie  turned  a  little  pale  as  he  said  it,  and  gnawed  the 
yellow  silk  of  his  mustache  with  a  terrible  anxiety  at  his  heart. 
The  gay  young  fellow,  the  fashionable  butterfly  of  the  F.  0., 
knew  little  more  of  business  than  a  child  unborn;  he  only 
knew  that  somehow  or  other,  thanks  to  tailors,  coryphees,  wine 
and  whitebait,  he  had  gone  the  pace  too  hard,  and  was  now  all 
down  hill  with  the  "  traces  broke.  ^' 

"Humph!  only  forty-eight  hours;  close  shave!"  said  Tre- 
venna.  "  Of  course  you  can't  do  anything,  if  you're  not  able 
to  get  the  money.     They've  the  law  on  their  side." 

Charlie  looked  at  him  a  little  v/istfully.  Men  always  con- 
fided in  Trevenna,  not  certainly  because  he  was  simpatico — 
rather  because,  in  the  first  place,  he  was  always  good-natured 
and  ready  to  give  them  his  shrewd,  clear,  practical  counsels, 
and,  again,  because  the  quick  resources  of  his  adroit  wits  and 
the  prompt  energy  of  his  temperament  inspired  them  with  in- 
stinctive confidence  and  hope. 

"  Can't  you  think  of  anything?  You're  such  a  clever  fellow, 
Trevenna:"  asked  the  embryo  diplomatist,  whose  personal 
diplomacy  was  at  its  wit's  end. 

"  Thanks  for  the  compliment,  bon  gar(;on,  but  I'm  not 
clever  enough  to  make  money  out  of  nothing.  How  people 
would  rush  to  my  laboratory  if  I  were!  I  should  cut  out  all 
the  pet  preachers  with  the  women.  I  really  haven't  an  idea 
what  advice  to  give  you.  I'd  see  these  Tindall  rascals  with 
pleasure  for  you;  but  I  don't  suppose  that  would  do  any 
good." 

"  Try!  there's  a  good  fellow!"  said  the  boy,  with  more 
eagerness  than  he  had  ever  thrown  into  his  sleepy,  silky  voice 
in  all  the  days  of  dandyism.  "  Oh,  by  George,  Trevenna, 
what  a  brick  you'd  be!  they'd  listen  to  you,  you  know,  ten  to 
one — " 

Trevenna  shook  his  head. 

"I'm  afraid  not.  A  Jew  hears  no  reason  that  doesn't 
satisfy  his  pocket.  Still,  I'll  try  what  I  can  do;  I'll  ask  them 
to  let  you  have  longer  time,  at  any  rate.  Perhaps  they'll  be 
persuaded  to  renew  the  bills.  Any  way,  I'm  more  up  to  City 
tricks  than  you  are,  Charlie.     Let's  see:  what's  their  place  of 


CHANDOS.  91 

business?  I  remember— that  wretched,  dirty  place  in  Piffler's 
Court,  isn't  it?     I'll  go  down  there  to-morrow  morning." 

Charlie's  languid  eyes  brightened  witli  delighted  hope,  and 
he  thanked  his  friend  over  and  over  again  with  all  that  cordial 
but  embarrassed  eagerness  which  characterizes  Young  England 
when  it  is  warmly  touched  and  does  not  like  to  make  a  fool  of 
itself.  Charlie's  heart  was  a  very  kind  and  a  very  honest  one, 
under  the  shell  of  dandy  apathy,  and  it  held  Trevenna  from 
that  moment  in  the  closest  gratitude. 

"  Such  a  brick  of  a  fellow  to  go  bothering  himself  into  that 
beastly  city  after  my  affairs!"  he  thought,  as  he  turned  into 
Pratt's  for  a  game  of  billiards,  while  Trevenna  sauntered  on 
down  the  shady  side  of  the  street. 

"  It's  as  well  to  oblige  him;  we  should  get  nothing  by  put- 
ting the  screw  on  him;  he  is  only  worth  the  tobacco-pots  and 
art-trash  he's  heaped  together  in  his  rooms,  and  that  chestnut 
hack  that  he's  never  paid  for.  It's  as  well  to  oblige  him. 
Dal  will  kill  himself  sooner  or  later  at  the  rate  he  goes,  and 
the  next  brother's  an  invalid;  Charlie's  sure  to  have  the  title, 
I  fancy,  some  day  or  other,"  thought  Trevenna,  as  he  went 
along,  encountering  acquaintances  at  every  yard,  and  receiv- 
ing a  dozen  invitations  to  luncheon  in  as  many  feet  of  the 
trottoir.  This  was  Trevenna's  special  statemanship — to  cast 
his  nets  so  forward  that  they  took  in  not  only  the  present  but 
the  future.  He  sought  the  society  and  the  friendship  of  young 
men:  who  knew  what  use  they  might  not  be  some  day? 

Men  thought  him  "  a  pushing  fellow,  but  then  so  deucedly 
amusing,"  and  liked  him.  He  was  almost  everywhere  wel- 
come to  them;  for  he  was  not  only  a  popular  wit  and  a  gos- 
siper,  but  he  was  a  surpassing  whist  and  a  capital  billiard- 
player,  an  excellent  shot,  a  splendid  salmon-fisher,  and  as 
unerring  a  judge  of  all  matters  "  horsy  "  as  ever  pronounced 
on  a  set  of  Eawcliffe  yearlings  and  picked  out  the  winner  from 
the  cracks  at  Danebury,  They  thought  him  "  nobody,"  and 
looked  on  him  as  only  Chandos's  protege  and  homme  iV  affaires, 
but  they  liked  him.  Women  alone  never  favored  him,  and 
held  him  invariably  at  an  icy  distance,  partly,  of  course,  from 
the  fact  that  women  never  smile  upon  a  man  who  has  noth- 
ing. Ladies  are  your  only  thorough  Optimates.  You  like  a 
man  if  he  be  a  good  shot,  a  good  rider,  a  good  talker;  they 
must  first  know  "  all  about  him;"  you  laugh  if  the  wit  be  Icn 
trovalo,  they  must  learn,  before  they  smile,  if  the  speaker  be 
worth  applauding;  you  will  listen  if  the  brain  be  well  filled, 
they  must  know  that  the  purse  is  so  also.  Women  therefore 
gave  no  sort  of  attention  to  Trevenna,  but  only  spoke  of  him 


92  CHAKDOS. 

as  ^*  a  little  man — odious  little  man,  so  brusque;  he  keeps  a 
cab,  and  lives  no  one  knows  how;  hangs  on  to  great  men,  and 
rich  men,  like  Chandos. " 

Besides,  Trevenna  offended  ladies  in  other  ways.  If  not  a 
great  disciple  of  truth  in  projjria  persona,  he  scattered  a  good 
many  truths  about  in  the  world,  though  he  lied  with  an  en- 
chanting readiness  and  tact  when  occasion  needed.  He  never- 
theless satirized  hypocrisy  and  humbug  with  a  genuine  relish 
in  the  work;  his  natural  candor  relieved  itself  in  the  flagella- 
tions he  gave  humanity.  He  had  a  rich  Hudibrastic  vein  in 
him,  and  he  was  not  the  less  sincere  in  his  ironies  on  the 
world's  many  masks  because  his  sagacity  led  him  to  borrow 
them  to  serve  his  own  ends.  Now  Truth  is  a  rough,  honest, 
helter-skelter  terrier,  that  none  like  to  see  brought  into  their 
drawing-rooms,  throwing  over  all  their  dainty  little  ornaments, 
upsetting  their  choicest  Dresden  that  nobody  guessed  was 
cracked  till  it  fell  with  the  mended  side  uppermost,  and  keep- 
ing every  one  in  incessant  tremor  lest  the  next  snap  should  be 
at  their  braids  or  their  boots,  of  which  neither  the  varnish  nor 
the  luxuriance  wil]  stand  rough  usage.  Trevenna  took  this 
unmuzzled  brute  about  with  him  into  precincts  where  there 
were  delicacies  a  touch  would  soil,  frailties  a  brush  would 
crack,  and  smooth  carpets  of  brilliant  bloom  and  velvet  gloss 
that,  scratched  up,  showed  the  bare  boards  underneath  and 
let  in  the  stench  of  rats  rotting  below.  Of  course  he  and  the 
terrier  too  were  detested  by  ladies.  Such  a  gaucherie  would 
have  been  almost  unbearable  in  a  duke!  They  would  have 
had  difficulty  to  control  the  grimace  into  a  smile  had  the 
coarse  and  cruel  pastime  been  a  prince's:  for  a  penniless  man- 
about  town  it  was  scarcely  likely  they  would  open  their  boudoir- 
doors  to  such  a  master  and  to  such  an  animal.  Women 
abominated  him,  and  Trevenna  was  too  shrewd  to  underrate 
the  danger  of  his  enemies.  He  knew  that  women  make  nine- 
tenths  of  all  the  mischief  of  this  world,  and  that  their  delicate 
hands  demolish  the  character  and  the  success  of  any  one  whom 
they  dislike;  but  to  have  given  himself  to  conciliate  them 
would  have  be^n  a  task  of  such  infinite  weariness  to  him  that 
he  let  things  go  as  they  would,  and  set  himself  to  achieve  what 
he  purposed  without  reference  to  them.  He  was  quite  sure 
that  if  success  shone  on  him  the  fair  sex  would  smile  too,  and 
would  soon  find  out  that  he  was  the  most  "  delightful  original 
in  the  world!" 

"  Chandos,'^  said  Trevenna*  an  hour  or  two  later,  taking 
his  friend  and  patron  aside  for  a  second  in  one  of  the  windows 
in  White's.     He  was  not  a  member  there;  even  Chandos  in- 


CHA.NDOS.  93 

fluence  could  not  as  yet  exclude  three  or  four  inevitable  black 
balls  to  his  name;  but  he  dropped  in  now  and  then  on  the 
score  of  needing  to  see  his  friend.  Men  could  do  under  the 
shadow  of  Chandos's  name  or  wish  what  they  could  never  have 
done  otherwise.  "  I  want  to  tell  you  something.  That  young 
brother  of  Dallerstone's  has  come  to  grief — ^fallen  in  Jews' 
hands — got  up  a  tree  altogether.  Dal  can't  lielp  him;  he's 
as  bad  himself;  and  they'll  be  down  upon  Charlie  on  Thurs- 
day." 

"  Poor  boy!     Can  not  we  stop  that?'* 

Chandos  was  watching  the  carriage-beauties  roll  past,  and 
was  not  heeding  very  much;  but  his  natural  impulse  was  to 
help  anybody. 

"  Well,  you  could,  of  course;  but  it  is  asking  a  great  deal 
of  you.     I  have  promised  him  to  see  Tindall's  people." 

"Who  are  they:" 

"  Jew  firoi  in  the  city;  hold  a  good  many  of  your  aristocra- 
tic friends  in  their  teeth,  too.  But  I  was  going  to  say  I  can't 
do  anything  for  him  unless  I  take  them  some  security  that 
they  will  have  their  money.  Now  if  I  could  use  your  name, 
though  there  is  no  reason  in  life  why  you  should  give  it — " 

"  My  name?  Oh,  I  will  serve  him,  certainly,  if  he  be  in 
difficulties.  He  is  a  nice  young  fellow,  Charlie.  What  is  it 
you  want  done?" 

"  Merely  your  name  to  get  the  bills  renewed.  They'll  trust 
that.  They  wouldn't  take  any  more  of  Master  Charlie's  sig- 
natures, or  of  his  dandy  young  F.  0.  friends  of  straw;  but  if 
you  back  him  uj)  I  dare  say  I  can  get  him  a  reprieve. " 

"  Oil,  yes;  I  will  do  that.  But  I  suppose  his  debts  are  not 
very  great — he  is  such  a  lad.  Would  it  not  be  better  to  buy 
his  paper  out  of  these  Hebrews'  hands?" 

"  Mercy  on  us,  monseigneur!"  cried  Trevenna.  "If  you 
don't  talk  as  coolly  of  buying  up  any  unknown  quantity  of 
bills  as  of  buying  a  cigar-case!  No:  there  is  no  necessity  for 
doing  anything  of  the  kind.  If  you  will  just  give  your  name 
to  renew  the  acceptances,  it  will  serve  him  admirably.  Mind, 
this  is  entirely  my  idea;  he  doesn't  dream  of  it;  but  I  know 
you  are  always  so  willing  to  aid  any  one.'* 

"  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  do  him  any  good — poor  young 
fellow!  You  can  have  my  signature  when  you  like,  though  I 
think  I  might  as  well  buy  the  bills  at  once;  for  most  likely  it 
will  end  in  my  paying  the  money,"  laughed  Chandos,  as  he 
dropped  his  eyeglass  and  turned  to  shake  hands  with  the  Diik* 
of  Crowndiamonds.    Trevenna's  eyes  smiled  with  self-contented 


94  CHANDOS. 

amusement  as  he  stood  a  moment  watcliing  tlie  roll  of  the 
carriages  down  St.  James's  Street. 

"  That  was  a  very  good  thought/'  he  mused  to  himself. 
"  I  shall  oblige  Charlie — what  an  angel  he  will  think  me — ■ 
and  we  shall  get  another  of  the  Prince  Clareucieux's  signatures 
into  Tindall  &  Co.'s  hands.  Ah!  there  is  nothing  like  com- 
bination and  management." 

"  How  does  that  man  live,  Ernest?"  asked  Cos  Grenvil,  as 
Trevenna  drove  from  the  doors  of  White's  in  his  very  dashing 
little  tilbury. 

"  Live,  my  dear  fellow?  I  don't  know.  AVhat  do  you 
mean?" 

"  How  does  he  get  the  money  to  keep  that  trap?  The 
mare's  worth  live  hundred  guineas.  He  always  vows  he  hasn't 
a  sou," 

"  A  man  must  drive  something,"  said  Chandos,  who  knew 
that  the  mare  had  come  out  of  his  own  stables.  "  Trevenna 
always  dines  out,  you  know;  and  rooms  in  a  quiet  street  cost 
nothing." 

"  Where  was  it  you  first  met  him?" 

"  1?     At  Baden,  3'ears  and  years  ago. " 

"Ah?"  yawned  Grenvil:  "plenty  of  scoundrels  to  be 
picked  up  there." 

Chandos  laughed. 

"  Thanks  for  the  information,  Cos.  You  are  prejudiced 
against  Trevenna.  Don't  believe  all  the  nonsense  he  talks 
against  himself:  there  is  not  a  better  fellow  living." 

"  '  On  aime  mieux  dire  du  mal  de  soi-meme  que  de  n'en 
point  parler,'  "  murmured  Grenvil.  "  I  fancy  that's  your 
prime  minister's  reason  for  blackguarding  himself  so  candidly. 
/don't  like  him!      WJio  is  he,  by  the  way?" 

"  I  am  sure  1  can  scarcely  tell  you.  I  believe  his  father 
was  a  consul,  and  died  abroad  somewhere:  so  he  told  me,  at 
the  least.  I  never  asked  any  more.  I  know  he  is  an  infinile- 
ly  clever  fellow — a  thorough  scholar  too,  though  he  xiever 
shows  off  his  scholarship.  Ah,  there  is  the  Lennox!  How 
splendidly  that  woman  wears!  she  must  be  thirty,  but  she  is 
lovely  as  she  was  ten  years  ago. " 

"  Beatrix?  Yes.  Berkeley  considers  himself  pins  Jin  que 
totfs  les  antres;  but  even  he  says  he's  never  thoroughly  sure 
of  being  quite  up  to  Tricksy  Lennox." 

"  What  a  compliment  she  will  deem  it!  She  is  dangerous, 
I  suppose;  her  ecarte  is  costly,  but  then— her  eyes  are  so 
lovely!  I  always  liked  Mrs.  Lennox;  she  is  really  perfect 
style,  and,  besides — *' 


CHANDOS.  95 

Chandos  did  not  conclude  his  sentence  as  to  nis  regard  for 
the  subject  of  it,  but  looked  after  her  a  moment.  A  lovely 
woman,  as  he  had  said,  with  hazel  eyes  and  hair  and  a  half- 
disdainful,  half-melanchol}'  glance  from  under  her  drooping 
lids,  who  was  driving  a  team  of  cream  Circassian  ponies. 
"  L' Empire  c'est  moi,"  was  written  in  every  line  of  her 
proud,  classic  features.  Queen  of  the  Free  Lances  as  she  was, 
daring  and  unscrupulous  Bohemian  as  the  world  notoriously 
declared  her. 

Trevenna,  further  down  St.  James's  Street,  arm  in  arm 
with  a  young  M.  P.,  who,  having  little  brains  of  his  own,  was 
very  glad  to  glean  a  few  of  the  witty  sayings  and  the  sagacious 
notions  of  the  man-about-town,  saw  Beatrix  Lennox  too,  as 
her  four  creams  dashed  along  like  fiery  little  fanciful  animals 
as  they  were. 

"  Confound  that  woman!*'  said  the  astute  diplomatist  to 
himself;  but  he  took  off  his  hat  to  her  with  his  merriest, 
briglitest,  and  most  pleasant  smile.  "  Rather  a  superfluous 
bit  of  ceremonious  homage  to  Tricksy  Lennox,  eh?'*  he  said  to 
the  young  member,  as  he  put  his  white  hat  on  again. 

Women  had  a  Just  prevoyance,  after  all,  in  their  dislike  to 
Trevenna.  Nobody  on  earth  could  more  irretrievably  blot 
and  blast  their  reputations  with  a  laugh. 

"  This  note  came  for  you,  sir,  during  the  morning,"  said 
Alexis,  his  head  valet,  as  Chandos  went  into  his  chamber  to 
dress  for  dinner  at  the  French  Embassy. 

"  Who  brought  it?" 

"  I  really  don't  know  who,  sir;  a  commissionnaire.  He 
could  not  tell  who  the  servant  was  that  gave  it  him,  but  said 
he  was  to  beg  me  to  see  it  personally  shown  you,"  said  Alexis, 
to  whom  the  commissionnaire  had  brought  a  considerable 
douceur  to  induce  him  to  perform  this  office,  all  the  letters  that 
were  sent  to  Chandos  in  unknown  hands  passing  to  his  secre- 
tary. 

He  took  it  as  he  went  into  his  dressing-room,  and  glanced  at 
it  indifferently.  Like  all  well-known  men,  he  received  so 
many  communications  from  strangers  that  he  never  looked  at 
any  letters  save  those  he  especially  cared  to  open.  We  are 
all  more  or  less  martyi's  to  letters,  and  get  a  salutary  dread  of 
them  as  years  roll  onward.  But  this  little  note  was  so  deli- 
cate, so  perfuniy,  so  i)retty,  and  looked  so  like  a  love-missive, 
that  Chandos  for  once  broke  both  his  rule  and  its  seal.  Littk 
of  love  repaid  him;  the  nolo  was  of  most  uiifeminine  brevity. 
though  of  thoroughly  feminine  mystery. 


96  CHANDOS. 

"  Chandos, — Believe  in  evil  for  once  in  your  life  if  you 
can.  The  man  yon  took  out  of  a  debtors'  prison  hates  you, 
if  ever  there  v^ere  hate  in  this  world.  Under  his  bright  good 
humor  there  lies  a  purpose  very  fatal  to  you.  What  purpose? 
I  can  not  tell  you.  Watch,  and  you  may  unmask  it.  All  I 
entreat  of  you  is,  be  on  your  guard;  and  do  not  lei;  your  own 
heedless  generosity,  your  own  loyal  and  gallant  faith,  betray 
you  into  the  hands  of  a  traitor.  Give  no  trust,  give  no  friend- 
ship, to  Trevenna:  '  latet  anguis  in  herba.'' 

"  Your  most  sincere  well-wisher.*' 

Chandos  read  the  note,  then  crushed  it  up  and  flung  it 
from  liim. 

A  certain  chilliness  had  passed  over  him  at  the  words  that 
attacked  in  the  dark  the  man  whom  he  had  so  long  trusted 
and  befriended.  Belief  in  it,  even  for  a  second,  had  not  power 
to  touch  him.  An  anonymous  note  of  course  brought  its  own 
condemnation  with  it;  but  susiDicion  in  any  shape  was  so  utter- 
ly alien  and  abhorrent  to  him  that  its  mere  suggestion  repelled 
him.  Suspicion,  to  frank  and  generous  tempers,  is  a  cowardice, 
a  treachery,  a  vile  and  creeping  thing  that  dares  not  brave  the 
daylight.  The  attack,  the  innuendo,  the  unauthenticated 
charge,  only  rallied  him  nearer  him  whom  they  impugned, 
not  from  obstinacy  or  from  waywardness — his  nature  was  too 
gentle  to  have  a  touch  of  either — but  simply  from  the  chivalry 
in  his  temperament  that  drew  him  to  those  who  were  slandered, 
and  the  loyalty  in  his  friendship  that  clung  closer  to  his  friend 
when  in  need. 

"  Poor  Trevenna!  Some  lady's  vengeance,  I  suppose.  If 
she  were  not  too  clever  for  any  such  folly,  and  too  generous 
for  any  such  slander,  I  should  say  the  writing  was  Beatrix 
Lennox's:  it  is  very  like,  though  disguised,"  he  thought,  as 
he  glanced  at  the  note  where  it  lay  among  the  azure  silk  and 
laces  of  his  bed,  where  it  had  fallen. 

It  left  a  transient  pain,  impatience,  and  depression  on  him 
for  ten  minutes  after  its  reception.  To  have  read  the  mere 
suggestion  of  perfidy  in  the  man  he  trusted  made  Chandos  feel 
himself  a  traitor;  and  to  his  careless,  insouciant,  serenity- 
loving  temper,  any  jar  of  a  harsher  world,  any  breath  of  doubt 
or  of  treachery,  was  as  repellent  to  his  mind  as  the  east  wind 
was  to  his  senses. 

He  took  his  bath,  of  whose  perfumes  he  was  as  fond  as  a 

^ek,  dressed,  and  went  to  dinner  at  the  French  Embassy 
and  thence  to  the  succession  of  entertainments  and  pleasures 
that  awaited  him,  closing  the  night  at  four  o'clock  in  tho 


CHANDOS.  9? 

morning  over  the  gay  souper  a  huis  clos  of  that  new  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur,  Chiiie  l?ahel;  and  throughout  the  night  he  did 
not  think  once  of  the  little  note  that  lay  hidden  among  the  silk 
folds  of  the  curtains,  crumpled  and  forgotten,  vain  and  use- 
less, as  most  warnings  are,  and  as  certainly  anonymous  wara- 
ings  deserve  to  be,  however  good  their  intention. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

A   JESTEE   "WHO  HATED  BOTH   PRIKCE  AND   PALACE. 

*'  Lady  Chesterton  is  vowing  Cherubino  is  divine.  Whal} 
queer  divinity!  What  would  Michael  Angelo  have  said  to  an 
archangel  in  a  tail-coat,  a  lace  cravat,  and  a  pair  uf  white  kid 
gloves,  holding  a  roll  of  music,  and  looking  a  cross  between  a 
brigand,  a  waiter,  and  a  parson?'^  said  Trevenna  to  the  Com- 
tesse  de  la  Vivarol.  Mme.  de  la  Vivarol  was' the  only  woman 
who  in  any  way  countenanced  and  liked  Trevenna,  the  only 
one  of  the  gr ancles  dames,  of  the  exclusive  leaders  of  ton,  who 
ever  deigned  to  notice  his  existence;  and  she  was  amused  by 
his  impudence,  his  sang-froid,  and  his  oddity,  and  paid  him 
only  just  as  much  attention  as  Montespan  and  other  great 
ladies  of  Versailles  paid  their  Barbary  monkey  or  their  little 
negro  dwarf,  according  the  pet  liberties  because  of  its  strange- 
ness and  its  insignificance. 

"  Droll  life,  a  public  singer's,"  went  on  Trevenna,  who  could 
not  keep  his  tongue  quiet  even  through  a  morning  concert,  and 
who,  moreover,  hated  music  heartilv,  and  could  not  have  told 
"Mose  in  Egitto  "  from  "  Yankee"'  Doodle.''  "  Subsists  on 
hie  clavicle,  and  keeps  his  bank-balance  in  his  thorax;  knows 
his  funds  will  go  down  if  he  hatches  up  a  sore  throat,  and 
loses  all  his  capital  if  he  catches  a  cough;  lunches  off  cutlets 
and  claret  to  come  and  sing  '  The  moon  rides  high,'  in  broad 
daylight;  and  cries  '  lo  son  ricco  e  tu  sei  bella,'  while  he\s 
wondering  how  he  shall  pay  his  debts,  and  thinking  what  an 
ugly  woman  the  singer  with  him  in  the  duo  is.  Ah,  by  the 
bye,  madame — apropos  of  plain  women  —  the  Marchesa  di 
Santiago  has  given  some  superb  malachite  candehibra  as  a 
votive  offering  to  Moorflelds,  for  the  same  reason,  they  do  say, 
as  the  Princess  do  Soubise  gave  gold  lamps  to  Bousse^t,  '  jjour 
le  pouvoir  de  pccher  a  I'anie  traiiqnille. '  " 

'*  Chut!  1  detest  scandal,"  smiled  Mme.  de  la  Vivarol; 
"  and  license  has  its  limits.  Monsieur  Trevenna.  Madame  di 
tsantiago  is  my  most  particular  friend." 

"Exactly;  of  your  enemy,  madame,  I  know  a  detrimental 

4 


98  CHANDOS. 

story  \7onld  not  bo  half  so  jiiquant!  To  hear  III  of  our  foes  is 
the  salt  of  life,  but  to  hear  ill  of  our  friends  is  the  sauos 
blanche  itself/'  responded  Trevenna  the  imperturbable. 

The  countess  laughed,  and  gave  him  a  dainty  blow  with  her 
satin  programme. 

"  Most  impudent  of  men!  When  will  you  learn  the  first 
lesson  of  society,  and  decently  and  discreetly  appreiidre  a 
vous  efface)'?" 

"  A  m'eff'acer?  The  advice  Lady  Harriet  Vandeleur  gave 
Cecil.  "Very  good  for  mediocre  people,  I  dare  say;  but  it 
"wouldn't  suit  ms.  There  are  some  people,  you  know,  that 
won't  iron  down  for  the  hardest  rollers.  M'eff'acer?  Ko! 
I'd  rather  any  day  be  an  ill-bred  originality  than  a  well-bred 
nonentity. " 

"  Then  you  succeed  perfectly  in  beiug  what  you  wish! 
Don't  you  know,  monsieur,  that  to  set  yourself  against  con- 
ventionalities is  like  talking  too  loud? — an  impertinence  and 
an  under-breeding  that  society  resents  by  exclusion?" 

"  Yes,  I  know  it.  But  a  duke  may  bawl,  and  nobody  shuts 
out  him;  a  prince  might  hop  on  one  leg,  and  everybody  would 
begin  to  hop  too.  Now,  what  the  ducal  lungs  and  the  prince- 
ly legs  might  do  Avith  impunity,  I  declare  I've  a  right  to  do,  if 
Ihke." 

"  Bccasse  !"  said  niadame;  "  no  one  can  declare  his  rights 
till  he  can  do  much  more,  and — -purchase  them.  Have  a 
million,  and  we  may  perhaps  give  you  a  little  license  to  be 
unlike  other  j)ersons;  without  the  million  it  is  an  ill-bred 
gaucherie. " 

^'  Ah,  I  know!  Only  a  nobleman  may  be  original;  a  poor 
penniless  wretch  upon  town  must  be  humbly  and  insignificant- 
ly commonplace.  What  a  pity  for  the  success  of  the  aris- 
tocratic monopolists  that  nature  puts  clever  fellows  and  fools 
just  in  the  reverse  order!  But  then  nature's  a  shocking 
socialist. " 

"  And  so  are  you.** 

Trevenna  laughed. 

"  Hush,  madame.  Pray  don't  destroy  me  with  such  b 
whisper." 

"  And  be  silent  yourself,"  said  Mme.  la  Comtesse.  "  You 
are  the  most  incorrigible  chatterer  out  of  a  monkey-house; 
and  one  can  not  silence  you  with  a  few  nuts  to  crack,  for  the 
only  thing  you  relish  is  mischief.  Chut!  I  want  to  hear  the 
concerto. " 

'^  Apprendre  a  wi'c/^'acer,"  meditated  Trevenna.  *' Life 
has  wanted  to  teach  me  that  lesson  ever  since  I  oj^ened  my 


CHANDOS.  99 

eyes  to  it.  *Fall  in  with  the  ruck;  never  think  of  winmng 
the  race;  never  dare  to  start  for  the  gold  cups  or  enter  your- 
self for  the  aristocratic  stakes:  plod  on  between  the  cart-shafts; 
toil  over  the  beaten  tracks;  let  them  beat  you  and  gall  you, 
and  tear  your  mouth  with  the  curb,  and  never  turn  against 
them;  but,  though  you  hate  your  existence  with  all  your  might 
and  main,  bless  the  Lord  for  your  creation,  preservation,  and 
salvation.*  That  was  the  lesson  they  tried  to  teach  me.  1 
said  I'd  be  shot  if  I'd  learn  it;  all  the  teachers  and  law-givers 
ooiddn't  force  it  down  my  throat.  I  am  a  rank  outsider;  no- 
body knows  my  stable  or  my  trainer,  my  sire  or  my  dam;  no- 
body would  bet  a  tenner  on  my  chances.  N'importe!  a  rank  out- 
sider has  carried  the  Derby  away  from  the  favorite  before  now.'* 
With  which  consohitory  metaphor  of  the  turf,  Trevenna 
leaned  back  to  Lady  Chesterton  with  as  familiar  a  sans  faf;on 
as  though  he  were  the  Duke  of  Crowndiamonds. 

*'  Pretty  landscape,  that  Hobbema?  Nothing  but  a  hovel 
among  birch-trees.  Why  on  earth  is  a  tumble-down  cottage 
so  much  prettier  on  canvas  than  a  marble  mansion?  One  likes 
srooked  lines  better  than  straight  ones,  I  suppose,  in  art  and 
3iit  of  it.  Humanity  has  a  natural  weakness  for  the  zigzag. " 
Lady  Chesterton  made  him  a  distant  bow,  and  a  stare  of 
iuch  iniutterable  insolence  as  only  a  great  lady  can  command. 
"That  insufferable  person!  Such  an  odious  ^o^^  ^e  ^r/r?»'- 
"ionl  I  can  not  think  hov>'  Chandos  can  countenance  him," 
said  her  ladyship,  without  deigning  to  murmur  any  lower  than 
usual,  to  the  Marchioness  of  Sangroyal  beside  her. 

The  concert  at  which  Trevenna  was  solacing  himself  for  the 
martyrdom  of  melody  by  watching  with  his  bright  eyes  for 
waifs  and  strays,  for  hints  and  grounds  of  future  scandalous 
and  entertaining  historiettes,  was  one  of  the  musical  mornings 
for  which  the  house  in  Park  Lane  was  famous;  concerts  of  the 
choicest,  under  the  organization  of  Guido  Lulli,  most  delicate, 
most  masterly  of  musical  geniuses,  with  the  repertoire  as  fall 
of  artistic  light  and  shade  as  any  Titian,  and  the  performance, 
by  the  first  singers  of  Europe,  just  sufficiently,  and  only  suffi- 
ciently, long  to  charm  without  ever  detaining  the  ear.  These 
concerts  were  invariably  in  the  isicture-galleries,  so  that  while 
the  glories  of  Gluck  and  Handel  and  liossini  and  Meyerbeer 
floated  on  the  air,  the  companion-art  was  always  before  the 
eyes  of  the  audience,  while  beyond,  aisle  upon  aisle  of  color 
and  blossom  opened  from  the  conservatories.  The  softest  of 
south  winds  blew  gently  in  now  frotn  the  ]>aradise  of  fiowera 
glowing  there;  the  sunlight  fell  into  soniedeep-hued  Ciorgione, 
some  historical  gathering  of  Veronese,  or  some  fair  martyr- 


100  CHAKDOS. 

[lead  of  Delaroche;  the  dilettanti  murmured  praise  of  a  fuguu 
ill  D  or  a  violin  obligate;  the  gold-corniced,  purple-hung 
Bhadowy  gallery  was  filled  with  a  maze  of  bright  hues  and  per- 
fumy  laces  and  the  fair  faces  of  women;  and  Chandos,  lying 
back  in  his  fauteuil  near  an  open  window,  listened  dreamily 
to  the  harmonies  of  Beethoven,  and  let  his  eyes  dwell  on  the 
Queen  of  Lilies. 

In  the  high-pressure  whirl  and  incessant  amusement  cf  his 
life,  it  was  difficult  for  any  one  impression  to  be  made  so  in- 
delibly upon  him  that  it  could  not  be  chased  awa/ and  sur- 
passed by  fifty  others  as  fascinatiug;  but,  as  far  as  he  could  be 
haunted  by  one  exclusive  thought,  that  thought,  since  the  night 
of  his  ball,  had  been  the  voung  Lily  Queen, 

"  In  many  mortal  forms  I  rashly  souglit 
Tlic  shadow  of  that  idol  of  my  thoughl!" 

ho  mused  to  himself,  with  a  smile.  *'  Have  I  found  it  at  last, 
1  wonder?     Surely." 

He  did  not  think  that  to  seek  it  here  might  be  to  the  full  as 
rash,  and  to  the  f  idl  as  vain,  as  any  other  phantom-search 
that  had  before  beguiled  him.  Whoever  does  think  so  in  the 
first  sweetness  of  the  aerial  vision? 

The  moment  when  he  had  seen  her  as  "  Lucrece  "  had 
been  fatal  to  him;  he  had  from  that  moment  lost  the  power 
of  judging  or  of  reading  her  with  truth  and  calmness;  for 
from  that  moment  she  had  become  the  mortal  form  of  his 
ideal  among  women.  The  shell  was  so  perfect,  he  never 
doubted  that  the  pearl  within  was  as  fair. 

His  glance  met  hers  now  as  he  sat  beside  her  just  within  the 
shade  of  one  of  the  jJurple  curtains,  where  she  was  framed  in 
a  setting  of  South  American  flowers,  with  one  faint  tint  of  the 
sunlight  straying,  rose-hued  and  mellow,  across  them  and  her. 

Q'he  softness  of  a  beautiful  warmth  passed  over  her  face  as 
she  met  his  glance,  wavering,  delicate,  the  flush  of  unconscious 
love  and  half-startled  pleasure;  he  did  not  ask  if  it  were  but 
from  the  rays  of  the  sun,  or  if  it  were  from  the  rays  of  a  sun 
brighter  and  more  jDrecious  to  us  than  the  sun  of  the  heavens 
— that  God  of  Light  we  call  Gratified  Vanity. 

He  bent  to  her  with  an  almost  caressing  homage,  though  he 
only  spoke  commonplace  words. 

"  I  had  the  whole  selection  classical  music  to-day,  Lady 
Valencia.  I  remembered  you  had  said  Mendelssohn  was  youi 
favorite  master." 

She  smiled — a  sweet,  glad  smile,  full  of  pleased  surprise. 

**  You  remembered  my  idle  words?'* 


CHANDOS.  101 

**  No  words  can  be  idle  to  me  that  you  have  spoken.*^ 

No  one  heard  the  answer  as  the  serene,  subhme  harmonies 
of  the  great  Israelite  floated  through  the  air,  and  he  leaned 
forward  toward  her  chair,  thinking  how  like  to  one  another 
were  the  pure  music  that  thrilled  his  ear  and  the  proud  yet 
soft  loveliness  that  charmed  his  heart,  It  was  his  v/ay  to  say 
gentle  things  to  all  women,  and  to  mean  them  indeed  while  he 
uttered  them;  but  here  he  meant  them  more  deeply  than  in 
the  mere  gallantries  of  a  courtly  society. 

She  looked  at  him  almost  shyly  under  the  shadow  of  her 
long  eyelashes.  The  touch  of  shyness  that  was  on  her  with 
him  lent  a  subtler,  sweeter  beguilement  to  the  young  patrician 
— so  tranquil  in  her  power  commonly,  so  haughty  in  her  deli- 
cate disdain  to  all  others  who  ever  sought  her. 

"  You  will  make  me  bold  enough,"  she  said,  with  a  smile, 
"  to  venture  to  ask  you  a  favor  that  I  have  been  hopelessly 
meditating  for  the  last  half  hour.^* 

"  It  is  granted  unasked.     And  now — r" 

*'  And  now — how  strange  you  will  think  it!" 

"  Have  no  fear  of  that.  If  I  can  please  you  in  anything,  I 
shall  be  honored  enough.     Your  wish  is — V 

''  "U' ell,''  she  answered,  with  a  low  laugh  that  scarcely  dis- 
turbed, or  was  told  from,  the  music,  it  was  so  like  it  in  sweet- 
ness, "  I  want  you  to  show  me  the  room  where  '  Lucrece '  was 
written.  You  do  not  let  the  world  in  there,  they  tell  me;  but 
I  fancy  you  v/ill  not  refuse  me  my  entreaty  to  enter  the  sacred 
precincts.'* 

"  Who  could  refuse  you  anything?"  he  asked  her,  in  turn. 
"Where  I  wrote  'Lucrece'  was  chiefly  in  the  East;  but  I 
will  gladly  let  you  honor  my  sanctum,  though  the  thoughts 
that  have  been  sufficient  for  me  there  will  scarcely  be  so  any 
longer  when  once  you  have  left  the  memory  of  your  presence 
to  haunt  it." 

They  spoke  no  more,  as  the  richest  melody  of  the  selection 
rolled  in  all  its  grandeur  down  the  air,  bearing  with  it  all  the  ' 
life  and  soul  of  the  Provencal  musician.  To  those  who  were 
gathered  here — save  to  Chandos.  indeed,  who  never  heard  a 
perfect  rhythm  of  harmony  but  tliat  he  glided  on  its  chords 
through  dreamy,  Shelley  fancies — the  music  was  but  a  pastime 
of  the  hour,  a  fashionabls  distraction  to  amuse  a  languid  mo- 
ment, a  cover  to  flirtation;  but  to  Lulli  it  was  the  very  breath 
of  existence.  Shrinking  from  every  strange  glance  and  voice, 
and  shunning  all  2)ublicity  as  ho  did  at  all  other  times,  he  was 
now — now  that  he  was  absorbed  in  his  art — us  sublimely  un- 
■^onscious  of  the  gaze  or  presence  of  that  aristocratic  and  in* 


103  CHAKDOS. 

different  crowd  as  though  they  were  peasant-childreu  listening 
to  his  notes.  He  was  as  insensible  to  them  as  though  they 
had  no  existence.  What  were  they  to  him — those  cold  dilet- 
tanti, those  airy  coquettes,  those  critical  dandies,  those  beauti- 
ful idiots,  who  tallied  art-jargon  without  a  throb  of  art  within 
their  souls?  Nothing.  They  had  no  part  nor  share  with 
him.  Ho  lived  in  the  world  he  created,  he  lived  in  tlie  heaven 
of  melody  that  was  around  him;  and  any  other  world  was  for- 
gotten. And  in  that  oblivion  the  man  grew  grand,  the  timid, 
suffering,  helpless  cripple  became  a  king  in  his  own  right,  a 
sovereign  in  his  own  domain — an  empire  that  lay  fnr  away 
from  the  fret  and  fume  of  men,  far  away  from  the  unworthi- 
ness  of  life.  His  head  was  proudly  borne;  his  haggard  cheek 
was  bright  with  the  youth  that,  save  in  dreams,  he  had  never 
known;  his  eyes  werealiglit  with  the  blaze  of  the  South  and  the 
light  of  the  conqueror;  and  those  among  the  guests  who 
thouglit  to  notice  this  lame  creature  with  the  heart  of  a 
Beethoven  would  put  up  their  glasses  and  give  him  a  curious 
look  as  though  he  were  a  medium  or  a  j)iece  of  china,  and  say 
to  each  otlier,  to  forget  it  the  next  moment — 

"  That  poor  mad  cripple! — quite  a  genius!  Odd  fancy  of 
Chandos  to  keep  him,  but  certainly  he  conducts  wonderfully 
well. " 

A\\  me!  Socrates  was  poisoned,  and  Gracchus  and  Drusus 
slaughtered,  and  Hildebrand  driven  to  die  in  exile,  and  Dante 
banished,  and  Shakespeare  unknown  by  his  generation,  and 
Spenser  killed  for  lack  of  bread,  and  Cervantes  left  to  rot  in  a 
debt-prison,  and  Keats  assassinated  with  neglect,  and  we  are 
none  the  wiser.  We  know  what  is  among  us  no  better  for  it 
all. 

"  And  all  at  once  tliey  leave  you,  and  you  know  themj 
We  are  so  foord,  so  cheated." 

Yes;  fooled  because  v/e  are  blind  in  our  owa  conceit  and 
gather  no  colly rium  from  the  past. 

"  What  a  beautiful  place!"  cried  the  Queen  of  Lilies,  as  she 
entered,  at  the  close  of  the  concert,  that  room  which  simply  s 
desire  to  be  able  to  command  perfect  solitude,  if  he  desired  it, 
had  made  him  deny  to  all  guests,  and  even  to  all  servants  un- 
summoned — a  natural  wish  enough,  which  had,  as  is  usual, 
excited  a  myriad  of  vague  and  utterly  irreconcilable,  contra- 
dictory rumors  as  to  its  uses.  Even  Lady  Valencia  was  a  lit- 
tle disappointed  to  find  that  there  was  no  mystery  whatever  in 
this  closed  ELeusinian  temple,  but  merely  that  grace  and  re- 
finement of  beauty  and  of  artistic  color  which  Chandos,  with- 
out effeminacy,  demanded  as  tlie  suvimiim  Ijonuin  of  life,  ami 


CEAKDOS.  103 

insisted  ou,  like  the  Greeks,  in  the  shape  and  habit  of  every 
commonest  household  thing. 

"  Too  beautiful  to  dedicate  to  solitude,"  she  said,  as  he  led 
her  iu  with  words  of  complimentary  welcome.  ''  How  con- 
noisseurs would  envy  all  the  Coustous  and  Canovas,  all  the 
pictures  and  bronzes,  buried  iu  this  single  room!  Why,  your 
■  yery  choicest  art-treasures  are  hidden  here!" 

lie  smiled. 

"  I  believe  they  are.  But  the  envy  of  the  virtuosi  would 
not  enhance  their  beauty  or  my  pleasure  in  if 

"  No?"  She  did  not  understand  him.  To  her  a  diamond 
was  no  more  worth  than  a  stone,  unless  it  were  seen  and 
coveted  of  others.  "  This  room  is  like  a  vision  of  Vathek.  Nc 
wonder  they  call  you  a  sybarite!" 

He  laughed. 

"  Do  they  call  me  so?  And  yet  I  would  have  rather  lived 
on  a  date  in  Pericles's  Athens  than  have  been  king  in  Sybaris. 
Ah!  I  told  you  it  was  cruel  kindness  to  come  here.  Lady  Val- 
encia; my  Daphne  will  have  no  smile,  and  my  Dauae  no  bloom 
any  longer.  My  art-idols  will  have  no  charm  beside  one  mem- 
ory.'' 

He  looked  down  on  her  with  a  glance  that  made  his  words 
no  empty  flattery,  as  they  stood  beside  a  writing-tabinet  that 
had  belonged  to  Tullia  d'Arragona.  She  laid  her  hand  on  the 
manuscripts  and  papers  that  strewed  it,  and  laughed,  half 
gayly,  half  mournfully,  as  she  touched  them. 

"  But  those  papers  contain  what  no  woman  will  rival.  An 
author  always  has  one  sovereign  that  no  one  can  dethrone — in 
his  own  dreams." 

She  must  have  known  that  it  would  have  been  hard  for  even 
a  port's  imagining  to  conjure  any  fancy  more  fair  than  her 
own  reality,  where  she  stood  leaning  slightly  down  over  the 
old  ebony-and-gold  cabinet  of  Strozzi's  mistress,  alone  with 
the  art  which  had  no  other  story  to  tell  than  the  love  it  em- 
bodied, no  other  thought  to  create  than  the  eternal  history  of 
human  passion — alone  with  the  golden  lingering  light  of  the 
sunset  playing  about  her  feet  and  shining  in  the  deep-brown 
luster  of  her  glance. 

He  stooped  toward  her,  made  captive  without  reflection, 
without  heed. 

'*'  But  doubly  happy  the  author  who  finds  his  fairest  dream 
made  real!  The  sovereign  of  ihe  fancy  niust  yield  her  scepter 
whenhervery  sPAile  is  found  in  the  living  sovereign  of  the  heart. " 

It  was  almost  a  love  declaration. 

At  that  moment,  through  the  open  door-way  floated  Mme.. 


li>i  CHANDOS. 

de  la  Vivarol,  her  pretty  ciiiniGS  of  laughter  softly  ringing;  on 
the  ear,  her  trailing,  silken  skirts  followed  by  Cos  Grenvil  and 
the  Duke  of  Crowndiamonds. 

**  Ah,  monsieur!  so  you  have  thrown  this  sacred  and  mys- 
tical chamber  ojDcn  at  last  to  j^i'ofane  feet?  How  charming  it 
is!— like  a  piece  of  description  out  of  '  Monte-Cristo!' '^  she 
cried,  with  charming  carelessness,  as  she  fluttered,  butterfly 
like,  about  the  room,  criticising  a  tazza,  glancing  at  a  manu- 
'script,  admiring  a  miniature,  trying  an  ivory  pistol,  comment- 
ing on  a  statuette.  "  !So  this  is  your  solitude!"  she  went  on, 
remorselessly  (while  none  but  he  caught  one  swift  glance  that 
meant,  "  You  desert  me?  aliens!  you  shall  regret  it!"), 
"  Realty,  mon  ami^  it  is  more  agreeable  than  most  men's  en- 
tertainments. We  shall  know  now  how  pleasant  your  retreat 
is  when  you  are  occupied — in  solitude — with  your  paperasses 
and  your  jjalette!'' 

"  Ah,  madame,'"said  Chandos,  laughingly,  though  he  knew 
very  well  v/hat  was  concealed  under  that  airy  challenge,  "  fair 
memories  v^ill  be  left  to  my  room,  but  its  spell  and  its  peace 
will  be  broken  forever.  As  I  was  saying  to  Lady  Valencia,  I 
can  never  summon  shapes  to  j^aper  or  canvas  now  that  its 
loneliness  will  be  haunted  with  such  recollections.*' 

"  Mon  ami,"  said  La  Vivarol,  with  the  prettiest  mocking 
grace  in  the  world,  "  are  you  so  very  constant  to  the  absent?" 

And  while  she  floated  hither  and  thither,  fluttering  over  a 
Vita  Nouva,  ricii  in  Attavante  miniatures,  lifting  her  eye- 
glass at  a  little  Wouverman,  murmuring,  "  Que  c'est  joli! 
que  c'est  joli!"  before  a  grand  scene  of  David,  and  slightly 
shrugging  her  shoulders  at  a  bewitching  Greuze,  because  it  was 
a  dift'erent  style  of  beauty  from  her  own,  none  could  have 
dreamed  that  madame  had  a  trace  of  pique  on  her.  Yet,  as 
they  left  for  their  carriages  a  fev/ moments  later,  it  would  have 
been  hard  to  say  which  had.  the  most  bitter  pang  against  her 
)i?al  treasured  in  silence — the  fair  Lily  Queen,  who  had  lost 
the  one  moment  when  warm  words  had  so  nearly  been  won  on 
his  lips,  or  the  French  countess,  who  had  found  another  given 
the  entrance  to  that  writing-room  to  which  admittance  had 
been  so  often,  and  so  steadily  though  gayly,  denied  her. 

As  for  Chandos,  he  consoled  himself  easily  with  the  happy 
insouciance  of  his  nature,  and  went  dov>m  to  dine  at  his  "  bon- 
bonniere  "  at  Richmond.  Among  his  party  was  Beatrix  Len- 
nox, a  clever  woman  and  a  brilliant — a  woman  with  the  talent 
of  Chevreuse  and  the  fascination  of  a  L'Enclos;  a  woman 
whose  wit  was  never  weary,  and  v/hose  voice  charmed  like  the 
Eound  of  a  flute  through  a  still,  aiomatic,  tropical  night;  a 


CHANDOS.  105 

Woman  in  whose  splendid  eyes  there  came  now  and  then,  when 
she  ceased  to  speak,  a  look  of  unutterable  pain,  a  look  that 
passed  very  quickly,  too  quickly  to  bo  ever  seen  by  thosa 
around  her. 

Chandos,  amused  by  these  nearest  to  him,  who  laid  them- 
selves out  to  so  amuse  him  with  all  the  brigiitness  of  their 
ready  esprit,  all  the  gayety  of  their  airy  laugliter,  all  the  in- 
fectious mirth  of  their  vivacious  chansons,  was  too  well  dis- 
tracted to  notice  or  perceive  that  Trevenna  studiously,  though 
with  all  his  customary  tact,  prevented  any  opportunity  oc- 
curring for  Mrs.  Lennox  to  approach  her  host  or  be  able  to 
address  him  in  any  way  apart.  He  did  not  notice,  either, 
though  she  was  a  favorite  with  him,  that  the  haughty,  resist- 
less, victorious  lionne,  usually  so  disdainful  and  so  despotic  in 
her  imperious  grace,  allowed  Trevenna  to  use  an  almost  inso- 
lent off-hand  brusquerie  to  her  unreproved,  and  once  or  twice 
took  the  cue  of  her  words  from  him,  and  obej'ed  his  glance  as 
a  proud  forest-born  deer  tamed  by  captivity  might  obey  the 
hand  of  its  keeper,  compulsorily  but  rebelliously. 

Chandos  had  the  too  ready  trustfulness  of  a  woman;  but  he 
had  nothing  of  that  subtle  power  at  the  perception  of  trifles, 
and  the  clairvoyant  divination  of  their  meaning,  which  atone 
to  women  for  the  risks  of  their  over- faith. 

The  world  amused  him  so  v/ell,  v.'hat  need  had  he  to  probe 
beneath  its  surface  or  ask  its  complex  springs?  That  work 
was  Trevenna's  business,  and  to  Trevenna's  taste.  Asa  boy, 
that  alert  humorist  had  never  seen  a  conjurer's  legerdemain 
but  to  buy  the  trick  of  it,  a  piece  of  machinery  but  to  investi- 
gate its  principle,  a  stage  but  to  go  behind  the  scenes,  a  watch 
but  to  break  it  in  trying  to  find  out  its  manufacture;  he  did 
the  same  now  with  human  life.  All  its  weaknesses,  all  its 
crimes,  all  its  secrets,  all  its  intricacies  and  conspiracies  and 
veiled  motives  and  plausible  pretexts,  it  was  his  delight  to 
pierce  and  learn  and  uncover  and  hold  in  abject  subjection. 
To  walk  as  it  were  in  the  underground  sewers  of  the  moral  nat-  ' 
ure,  and  to  watch  all  the  wheels  within  wheels  of  the  world's 
rotation,  was  an  exquisite  amusement  to  Trevenna.  Nor  did 
he  ever  get  cynical  with  it.  He  tiiought  very  badly  of  human- 
ity, to  be  sure;  but  it  tickled  his  fancy  that  men  should  be 
such  rascals  as  he  thought  them;  it  never  for  an  instant  made 
bim  sour  at  it.  He  v;as,  as  Chandos  had  said,  an  odd  mixture 
of  Theophrastic  bitterness  and  Piautus-liko  good  humor.  He 
never  condemned  anything;  he  only  fountl  evei-ytlu'ng  out. 
He  had  not  the  slightest  objection  that  men  should  be  scoun- 
drels j  on  the  whole,  it  was  more  convenient  that  they  shouW 


106  CHANDOB. 

be  so;  all  he  cared  was  that  he  should  be  up  to  their  movofi* 
Nor  was  it  a  brief  or  a  light  labor  by  which  be  became  so. 
A  marvelously  unerring  memory,  an  acumen  of  the  finest  in- 
telligence, a  universality  that  could  adapt  itself  pliably  to  all 
forms,  a  penetration  that  never  erred,  a  logic  that  could  never 
be  betrayed  into  the  ignoratio  elenchi,  and,  above  all,  a  light, 
off-hand,  perfect  tact  that  could  successfully  cover  all  these 
from  view,  were  the  severe  acquirements  that  wero  necessities 
for  his  success;  and  by  a  perseverance  as  intense  as  ever  scholar 
brought  to  his  science,  or  wai'rior  to  his  struggle,  he  had  gained 
them  in  such  proportion  at  least  as  any  man  can  ever  hope  to 
attain  them  all.  There  was  strong  stuff,  there  was  great  stuff, 
in  the  man  who  could  put  himself  voluntarily  through  such  a 
course  of  training  as  Trevenna  had  now  pursued  through  long 
years — to  the  world's  view  of  him  an  adventurer,  an  idler,  a 
diner-out,  a  hanger-on  to  men  of  rank  and  ricbes,  in  real  truth 
a  man  whom  not  one  trifle  of  the  passing  bour  escaped,  by 
whom  the  slightest  thread  that  might  be  useful  in  the  future 
was  never  neglected,  and  who,  after  pleasures  and  affronts  in 
turn  that  would  have  alternately  enervated  and  heart-sickened 
any  other  less  sturdily  in  earnest  tban  himself,  could  come 
back  to  his  cheap  lodgings  to  plunge  into  intellectual  labor 
and  to  grind  political  knowledge  as  arduously  and  as  steadily 
as  though  he  were  a  lad  studying  for  his  Greats  at  a  uni- 
versity. 

The  qualities  he  brought  to  his  career  were  admirable  be- 
yond all  average  of  ordinary  power;  the  jiurpose  of  his  career 
was  more  questionable.  He  would  bave  said,  and  so  far  with 
fair  justice,  that  it  was,  at  any  rate,  tbe  same  which  sent  Alex- 
ander into  the  heart  of  the  East,  which  placed  Mohammed  at 
the  bead  of  the  wondrous  legions  of  El-Islam,  and  wliich  sent 
"William  of  Orange  to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain  and  tbe 
young  Oorsican  to  the  dais  and  diadem  of  Louis  Q.uatorze — the 
motive  of  self-aggrandizement.  And,  in  truth,  there  was  in 
this  good-humored,  impudent,  imperturbable,  brusque,  amus- 
ing man-about-town,  who  jested  to  get  a  dinner  and  put  up  with 
slights  to  purchase  a  day's  shooting,  the  same  element  of  in- 
domitability  as  there  was  in  Casar,  the  same  power  of  con- 
centration as  there  was  in  Columbus,  and  the  same  strength 
of  self-training  as  there  was  in  Julian.  Only  his  Iiome  waa 
the  House  of  Commons,  his  Terra  Nuova  was  the  table-land 
where  adventurers  were  denied  to  mount,  and  his  deities  were 
Money,  Success,  and  Vengeance — gotis,  it  must  be  confessed, 
in  all  ages  fair  to  men  as  Venus  Pandemos,  and  more  potent 
with  them  tban  all  tbe  creeds  from  Cybele's  to  Chrysostom's. 


CHANDOS.  107 


BOOK   THE  8EG0ND, 


O  ye  gods!  what  a  number 
Oii  men  eat  Timon,  and  he  sees  them  notf 

yHAKESl»7-ATi3i 

O  Jealousy!  thou  most  unnatural  offspring 

Of  a  too  tender  parent,  that  in  excess 

Of  fondness  feeds  thee,  like  the  pelican. 

But  with  her  purest  blood;  and  in  return 

Thou  tear'st  the  bosom  whence  thy  nurture  flows. 

Fkoude. 


CHAPTEK  L 

UNDER  THE  WATEKS  OP  NILE. 

It  was  night  in  the  low,  crooked,  dirty,  unsavory  court  in 
which  stood  the  little  rickety  door,  with  its  yellow  panes  oE 
opaque  glass,  that  was  lettered  Tindall  &  Co.  An  unpretentious 
place,  untempting,  dusty,  and  boasting  in  no  way  of  itself — 
its  shop  or  counting-house  (for  it  was  a  cross  between  the  two) 
suggestive  of  no  particular  trade,  but  chietly  filled  with  a  few 
old  pictures,  a  few  old  blackened  bronzes,  a  piece  or  two  of 
quaint  armor,  a  violin  dit  de  Stradivarius,  a  little  china,  and 
much  lumber.  These  things,  however,  remained  there  week 
after  week;  it  was  not  in  them  that  Tindall  &  Co.  dealt,  and 
they  were  too  striiightforward,  too  affluent  people  to  care  to 
palm  these  broken  antiquities  and  mock  virth  off  upon  their 
clients;  that  was  not  their  way  of  doing  business  at  all.  Tho 
brown  pictures,  the  cracked  cliiua,  the  old  pair  of  Modenese 
carvings,  the  helmet,  or  the  fiddle,  were  only  trifles  on  the 
surface,  immaterial  garnishings  to  answer  the  curious  eyes  of 
the  multitude  when  those  eyes,  in  passing,  peered  in  and  won- 
dered what  was  traced  in  beliind  the  opiujue  panes  of  glass. 
Underneath  tliem,  as  the  crocodile  sits  hidden  with  the  sullen, 
reddish  waters  and  the  broad,  fan-like  leaves  of  the  Nile  abovo 
his  scaly  head  and  opened  jaws,  so  might  be  said  to  sit  Timlall 
&  Co.,  eating  all  manner  of  strange  tilings  that  dropped  be- 
tween their  fangs — youth  and  age,  broad  estates  and  aucient 


108  CIIAKDOS. 

halls,  wooded  acres  and  gallant  names,  boyhood  with  the  gold 
on  its  hair,  and  manhood  with  the  shot  of  the  suicide  through 
its  heart,  eating  them  all,  and  mashing  them  together  impar- 
tially, and  churning  them  all  down  without  distinction  into 
one  vast,  even,  impotent,  shapeless  mass  of  ruin. 

This  was  what  Tindall  &  Co.  did  under  the  flowing  mud- 
hued  Nile-tide  of  London  life,  and  then  lay  basking,  alligator- 
like, waiting  for  more.  G^his  is  what  Tindall  &  Co.,  and  such- 
like spawn  of  Nile,  can  do  under  the  beneficent  laws  which, 
by  restricting  usury  with  a  penalty,  compel  despair  to  pay 
double  for  the  straw  it  grasps  at — laws  which  forget  that,  de- 
spite them  all,  the  supply  will  always  continue  to  meet  the  de- 
mand, and  that  their  only  issue  is  to  make  the  one  who  sup- 
plies insist  on  treble  payment  as  indemnity  for  the  risk  he  run?, 
through  them.  Ah!  wise,  calm  voice  of  Political  Economy, 
Mill  it  ever  be  heard?  will  its  true  justice  ever  outweigh  the 
gushing  impulses  of  cruel  sentiment?  will  it  ever  be  known 
that  its  immutable  impartiality  is  as  truly  gentle  as  tlie  world 
at  present  calls  it  hard?  When  it  shall  be,  the  crocodiles  will 
be  crushed  in  turn,  and  crocodile-tears  flow  no  more;  but  the 
millennium  is  very  far  away. 

The  premises  of  Tindall  &  Co.  were  cut  up  into  various 
small  rooms;  privacy  was  an  essential  of  their  pursuits.  It 
would  v/arn  away  the  antelope  that  steals  down  to  the  treach- 
erous edge  to  slake  its  thirst  within  fatal  distance  of  the  alli- 
gator's jaws  if  it  were  to  see  signs  of  the  bones  and  skin  of  a 
lately  devoured  brother  lying  near.  They  were  all  dingy,  dull, 
smoke-dried  little  chambers,  with  a  musty,  repellent  odor  that 
involuntarily  brought  remembrance  of  the  Morgue.  In  one  of 
them  to-night,  the  poorest  of  the  lot,  which  bore  traces  of 
constant  occupation  in  its  poor  furniture,  was  the  old  Castilian 
Jew,  standing  in  the  tawny  light  of  a  hand-lamp  burning  near 
him,  whose  yellow  gleam  flickered  over  his  long  black  gar- 
ments, his  snow-white  patriarchal  beard,  and  his  cap,  like  the 
round  cap  of  a  Hubens  picture,  of  worn  dark  velvet,  scarce 
darker  than  his  olive  brow,  with  the  straight  line  of  the  eye- 
brows, and  the  piercing  eyes,  whose  luster  even  age  could  not 
dim.  Before  him,  in  the  shadow,  was  a  young  boy,  a  boy  at 
most  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  years,  beautiful  as  a  Murillo 
head,  with  the  rich  red  li])s,  the  black,  long,  tender  eyes,  the 
falling  silken  locks  of  a  Spanish  picture,  and  the  appealing. 
Boftness  of  an  extreme  youth  blended  in  hira  with  the  fixed 
misery  of  a  shameful  grief.  There  were  heavy  tears  on  his 
dropped  lashes,  and  his  lips  were  slightly  apart  like  those  of 
one  who  is  worn  out  and  faint  with  pain.     Between  the  two 


CHANDOS.  109 

fitood  Trevenna,  with  his  bright,  open,  pleasant  face  and  its 
shrewd  blue  English  eyes,  dressed  for  the  evening,  with  the 
lamp-light  falling  on  the  polish  of  his  Paris  boots  and  the  laced 
ends  of  his  neck-tie,  as  he  leaned  in  comfortable  indifference, 
like  one  who  is  master  of  the  house  and  master  of  the  situa- 
tion, against  the  wooden  ledge  of  the  painted  mantel-piece, 

"  Much  more  sensible  to  come  back,  little  Benjamin/'  he 
said,  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders.  *'  Never  try  dodging 
with  me  ;  it  isn't  the  least  bit  of  use.  Only  riles  me,  as  tbe 
Yankees  say,  and  can't  serve  you  in  the  slightest.  Bless  your 
heart,  my  little  felon,  do  you  suppose  if  you  were  to  hide  your- 
self in  the  African  sands,  or  bury  yourself  in  the  Arctic  ice,  1 
shouldn't  ferret  you  out  when  I  wanted  your" 

His  laughing,  merry  eyes  flashed  a  single  glance  into  the 
lad's  drooped  face;  and  the  boy  shuddered  and  trembled,  and 
turned  pale  as  though  he  were  an  accused  between  the  irons, 
wrenched  with  another  turn  of  the  rack. 

"  Not  the  smallest  use  in  dodging,"  pursued  Trevenna,  as 
good-naturedly  and  agreeably  as  thoue'h  he  offered  him  a  glass 
of  sherry.  "  Shows  great  inexperience  to  try  it.  World's 
made  up  of  flies  and  spiders;  you're  a  fly,  and  all  the  world's 
a  net  for  you;  glide  through  one  web,  another'U  catch  you. 
Listen;  you'd  better  understand  it  once  for  all.  Do  what  you 
like  with  yourself,  go  where  you  like,  burn  yourself  up  in  the 
tropics,  bury  yourself  down  in  the  mines,  grow  old,  marry, 
grow  gray,  get  children,  make  money;  but  don't  think  to  es- 
cape 7nc.  When  I  want  you,  or  when  you  forfeit  leniency,  I 
shall  have  you.  Just  think!  twenty  years  hence  perhaps  you 
may  be  fancying  the  thing  blown  over,  you  may  be  living  in 
luxury,  even — who  knov/s? — yonder  there  among  your.precious 
Spanish  vines;  you  maybe  in  love  and  have  some  soft  Andalu- 
sian  for  your  wife;  you  may  have  friends  who  think  you  a  mir- 
ror of  probity,  brats  who  will  own  your  name,  ail  sorts  of 
st;ikes  in  life,  all  sorts  of  ties  to  it;  and  just  then,  if  I  want 
you — Presto!  I  shall  be  down  upon  you.  So  never  feel  sure, 
that's  all;  and  never  try  dodging." 

He  watched  the  boy  as  he  spoke,  winding  up  nil  these  fan- 
cies, so  foreign  to  his  natural  speech,  that  he  mioht  turn  with 
each  one  of  them  another  grind  of  the  rack  to  the  soft  and 
hel[)less  nature  before  him.  It  amused  him  to  see  the  ;>gony 
they  caused.  The  boy  shrunk  further  and  further,  like  a 
hunted,  stricken  creature,  trembling  and  paralyzed,  his  eyes 
fascinated  on  his  tormentor  as  though  by  a  spell.  The  old 
man  stood  mute  and  motionless,  but  an  anguish  greater  even 
than  the  youth's  was  on  him  in  his  silence;  and,  as  his  eyes 


110  CHANDOS. 

tarned  with  piteous  entreaty,  his  dry  lips  murmured,  uncon« 
scioiisly — 

"  Sir,  sir!  as  you  are  merciful! — he  is  so  young." 

**  Precisely  because  he  is  so  young,  my  good  Ignatius,  must 
we  have  him  know  that,  live  as  long  as  he  may,  he'll  never  be 
free,"  retorted  Trevenna,  pleasantly.  "He  has  a  long  life 
before  him,  and  he  might  get  fancying  that  all  this  would  wear 
out;  but  it  won't.  Paper  isn't  sand,  and  that  little  document 
of  his  will  always  stand." 

The  boy,  Agostino,  as  he  was  called,  the  only  living  thing 
of  the  old  man's  blood  and  name,  looked  up  with  a  low,  gasp- 
ing cry.  This  merciless  seizure  of  all  his  future,  this  damning 
denial  of  all  earthly  hope,  this  chain  that  wound  about  all 
years  to  come  ere  yet  they  had  dawned  on  him,  this  despairing 
eternity  of  bondage,  were  greater  than  he  could  bear.  He 
threw  up  his  arms  with  a  passionate  moan,  and  flung  himself 
at  Trevenna's  feet,  his  bright  brow  bent  down  ou  the  dust,  his 
hands  claspmg  the  hem  of  his  tyrant's  coat. 

"  Kill  me!  Oh,  God  of  Israeli  kill  me  at  one  blow.  I  can 
not  live  like  this." 

Trevenna  moved  his  foot  a  little,  as  though  he  pushed  away 
a  whining  spaniel,  and  laughed  as  he  looked  down  on  him. 

"  Cher  Agostino,  you  would  make  a  capital  actor.  I  think 
I'll  put  you  ou  the  stage;  you'd  be  a  first-rate  Romeo,  or 
Ion." 

The  kick,  the  laugh,  the  words,  in  the  moment  of  his  in- 
tense torture,  stung  and  lashed  the  submissive  spirit  of  tho 
Israelite  race,  and  the  terror-stricken  bondage  of  the  boy,  into 
a  passionate  life  that  broke  all  bonds.  He  sprung  to  his  feet, 
standing  there  where  the  tawny  circle  of  the  oil-light  fell,  like 
a  young  David,  liis  rich  li[)s  quivering,  his  curls  flung  back, 
his  cheek  with  its  glowing  Murillo  tint  deepened  to  a  scarlet 
fire. 

**  What  have  I  done?"  he  cried  aloud,  while  his  voice  rang 
piteously  through  the  chamber,  "  What  have  I  done,  to  be 
tortured  like  this?  ISIot  a  tithe  of  what  is  done  here  every 
day,  every  hour!  If  I  he  a  thief,  where  isthewondei?  Is 
there  not  robbery  round  me  from  noon  to  night?  Is  not  every 
breath  of  air  in  this  accursed  den  charged  witli  some  lie,  some 
theft,  some  black  iniquity?  Hundreds  come  here  in  their 
ruin;  is  one  ever  spared?  Is  not  a  trade  in  men's  necessities 
driven  here  from  year's  end  to  year's  end?  Is  not  povertj 
betrayed,  and  ignorance  tempted,  and  honor  bought  and  sold 
here  every  week?    How  could  I  learn  honesty  where  all  is 


CHANDOS.  Ill 

fraud  and  sin?  how  could  1  keep  stainless  where  everything  ia 
corruption?     If  I  am  a  thief  and  a  felon,  what  are  you  9" 

The  bold  words  poured  out  in  anguish,  their  English  speech 
tinged  and  mellowed  with  the  Castiiian accent.  Suffering  had 
made  him  desperate;  he  writhed  and  turned  and  struck  his 
bondmaster.  The  old  man  heard  him,  trembling  and  aghast; 
his  brown  face  blanched,  his  teeth  shook;  he  looked  up  at 
Trevenna  with  a  i^iteous  supplication. 

"  Oh,  sir!  oh,  my  master,  forgive  him!  He  is  but  a  child, 
and  he  knows  not  what  he  says — " 

''  He  will  know  what  he  has  to  pay  for  it.  Out  of  my  way, 
you  young  hound.'' 

The  answer  was  not  even  angered^  not  even  jarred  from  his 
customary  bantering  bonhomie;  but  at  the  glance  of  the  keen 
blue  eye  that  accompanied  it,  all  the  sudden  fire,  all  the  mo- 
mentary rebeilion,  of  the  boy  died  out;  he  felt  his  own  utter 
powerlessness  against  the  master  he  contended  with;  he  cow- 
ered like  a  beaten  dog,  dropped  his  head  on  his  breast,  and 
burst  into  a  passion  of  tears. 

"  Shut  up  that,"  said  Trevenna,  carelessly,  whilcj  as  much 
unmoved  as  though  the  young  Jew's  fiery  words  had  never 
scathed  his  ear,  he  took  out  some  papers  from  his  inner  coat- 
pocket  and  tossed  them  to  Ignatius  Mathias.  "Here,  look 
alive.  Take  these;  and  don't  do  anything  to  little  Dallerstone 
yet  awhile.  If  he  come  here,  mind  he  doesn't  know  anything 
about  these  signatures;  let  him  understand  that,  quite  as  a 
matter  of  kindness,  I  looked  in  to  see  if  you  could  be  induced 
to  take  the  screw  off  him;  let  him  think  that  I'd  infinite 
trouble  to  get  you  to  do  anything  of  the  kind;  and  leave  him 
to  feel  that  you'll  very  likely  be  down  on  him,  and  that  his 
only  safety's  in  me.     Look  sharp;  you  understand:" 

The  Hebrew  bent  his  head,  holding  the  papers  in  his  with- 
ered hands;  they  were  the  bills  of  young  Charlie  Dallerstone, . 
freshly  renewed  on  Chandos's  acceptation. 

"  One  thing  more,"  went  on  Trevenna,  looking  at  his  watch;  ^ 
for  he  was  going  to  dine  in  Park  Lane,  and  it  was  nearly 
nine.  *'I  find  Sir  Philip  looks  booked  to  make  a  very  sure 
thing  at  the  Ducal.  His  French  horse  is  sure  to  win,  and  he 
may  strike  a  vein  of  luck  again.  Catch  him  while  he's  down;  . 
call  in  his  '  stiff  '  to-morrow.  He  must  sell  up;  he  can't  help 
himself.  As  for  Lady  Vantyro — one  doesn't  deal  with  women 
usually;  but  she's  been  going  it  very  fast  in  Venezuelan  bonds 
and  California  scrip.  She  wants  some  ready,  and  she's  quite 
Bafo;  she'll  come  into  no  end  of  money  by  and  by.  I  buy  and 
sell  for  her  in  the  Citv,  so  I  know  to  a  T  what  she's  worth. 


113  CHAKDOS. 

That's  nil,  I  iliiiik.  You  may  come  to  me  the  day  after  to« 
morrow,  if  yon've  anything  to  say.  Good-bye,  young  one; 
and  just  remember,  if  you  don't  want  to  see  the  hulks — don't 
dodge!" 

With  which  valediction,  Trevenna  sauntered  out  of  the  roonv 
drawing  on  his  gloves,  to  get  into  his  night-cab  and  drive  to 
one  of  those  charming  dinners  of  princes,  jjeers,  wits,  authors, 
and  artists,  all  chosen  for  some  social  gift  of  brilliance,  for 
which  the  house  of  Chandos  was  celebrated. 

"What  an  angel  Cliarlie  will  think  me!"  thought  Tre- 
venna, with  a  laugh,  as  his  dashing  cab  clattered  his  way  from 
Tindall  &  Co.'s,  where  he  had  stopped  openly  and  left  his 
thoroughbred  high-stepper  to  dance  impatiently  before  the 
door  in  full  view  of  any  passer-by.  He  only  went  on  Charlie's 
business. 

Tliose  whom  he  had  left  in  the  little,  close,  and  ill-illumined 
chamber  were  silent  many  moments.  That  laughing,  frank, 
clever  face  of  their  tyrant  had  left  a  shadow  there  dark  as 
night.  The  two  forms  were  in  strange  contrast  with  the 
meager  commonplace  of  their  surroundings — two  figures  of 
Giorgione  and  of  Rubens  painted  in  upon  the  drab-hued  dusty 
panels  of  the  miserable  City  office-room.  The  youth  Agos- 
tino  sat  motionless,  his  head  bowed  down  upon  his  arms.  The 
old  man  watched  him,  his  eyes,  with  all  the  yearning  tender- 
ness of  a  woman  in  them,  filling  with  the  slow,  salt  tears  of 
age.  He  was  a  hard  man,  a  cunning  man  maybe,  a  man 
chilled  by  a  long  life  of  opprobrium,  of  struggle,  of  persecu- 
tion, of  jiain;  but  he  was  soft  in  his  heart  as  a  mother  to  that 
beautiful  lad,  thq  last  flower  of  a  doomed  and  died-out  house. 
He  loved  him  with  a  great  love,  this  only  living  son  of  his 
young  dead  wife — this  Eenoni,  who  had  come  to  him,  as  it 
seemed,  with  all  the  perfume  and  the  poetry  of  his  lost  Spain 
shed  on  his  vivid  beauty  and  seeming  to  revive  in  his  hajopy 
grace. 

Therefore  in  his  sin  he  had  clung  to  him,  in  his  shame  lie 
had  no  reproach  to  deal  him;  and  through  him,  for  him,  by 
him,  the  grand  old  Israelite  became  weak  as  water,  facile  as  a 
reed,  in  the  hands  of  an  inexorable  task-master,  who  was  as 
exacting  as  an  Egyptian  of  old. 

He  laid  his  hand  on  the  boy's  bowed  head  and  moved  the 
thick  curls  tenderly. 

"  You  were  too  rash,  my  Agostino;  it  is  not  for  the  helpless 
to  incense  the  strong.  I  trembled  as  I  heard.  My  child,  my 
child,  your  sole  hope  is  in  his  si^ariug  you.'" 


CHANDOS.  113 

Agostino  lifted  his  head,  the  tears  heavy  on  his  lids,  his 
Hps  swelled  aud  parted. 

"Forgive  me,  father.  I  was  mad!  And  1  only  said  the 
truth  to  liim,  though  the  God  of  Truth  is  my  witness  that  I 
had  no  thought  to  wound  you,  or  to  mean  yoii,  byniy  words. 
If  what  I  see  here  is  evil,  what  I  learn  from  you  is  good — so 
lofty  that  it  should  outweigh  it  a  thousand-fold.  My  guilt  is 
my  own;  I  meant  no  reproach  to  you.'' 

"  I  know,  I  know,''  said  the  old  man,  wearily.  "  But  you 
angered  him,  my  child;  I  saw  it  by  his  eye,  and — and — we 
are  in  his  power.  He  has  been  good  to  us — good  to  us. 
We  are  bound  to  bear  the  stripes  that  he  may  deal." 

It  was  said  patiently,  firmlv,  and  in  sincerity.  Trevenna 
had  bought  his  invaluable  tool  by  a  few  arts  which  were  on 
the  surfaoe  benevolent  and  lenient,  and  were  in  literal  fact  far- 
sighted  plans  to  purchase  a  fine  instrument  at  a  small  price. 
But  the  perception  of  this,  even  where  it  dawned  on  him,  did 
not  ava,il  to  shake  the  old  Israelite's  sense  of  grateful  bond- 
age; nor  would  it  have  done  so  even  had  it  not  been  accom- 
panied with  the  auxiliaries  of  necessity  and  fear  which  through 
Agostino  he  was  moved  by  as  well. 

"  (lood!"  the  youth's  eyes  flashed,  and  his  mouth  quivered. 
"  I  would  to  Heaven,  but  for  the  shame  on  you,  that  he  would 
give  me  up  to  justice,  and  send  me  out  to  any  fate,  rather 
than  force  me  to  live  in  this  yoke  an  hour  longer.  It  kills 
me!  it  kills  me!  under  his  eye  I  have  no  will;  under  his 
law  my  very  breath  seems  his.  What  is  it  to  be  spared,  to  be 
dogged  by  such  a  doom  as  he  told  out  to  me? — a  never-ending 
dread!" 

The  old  man  shuddered,  and  on  his  face  there  deepened  tliat 
terrible,  haunted  look  of  fear  for  one  dearer  than  himself, 
which  had  gleamed  out  from  the  light  of  his  sunken  eyes 
throughout  Trevenna's  presence. 

"  Agostino,  the  life  of  a  convict  for  ?/02i .'  The  irons  on  your 
young  limbs,  the  brutal  work  for  your  delicate  strength,  the 
captivity,  the  travail,  the  shame,  the  misery — " 

His  voice  failed  him;  he  could  not  think  of  the  near  ap- 
proach of  such  a  doom  for  the  only  tiling  left  to  him  on  earth 
without  his  anguish  mastering  him.  Agostino  trembled  and 
shrunk  back,  crouching,  bowed,  and  prostrate,  in  the  same 
paralysis  of  liorror  which  had  subdued  him  when  Trevenna 
had  spoken.  Ho  could  not  have  faced  his  fate.  There  was  on 
the  Spanish  splendor  of  his  boyish  loveliness  a  wavering, 
womanish  weakness,  a  cowardice,  the  result  not  of  selfishness, 
but  of  changing  and  painful  sensitiveness;  it  was  this  insta* 


114  CHANDOS. 

bility,  this  cowardic:,  which  had  drawn,  liim  into  a  crime  wholl}! 
lit  variance  with  the  candid  tenderness  of  his  regard,  and 
whicli  made  him,  through  his  fear,  ductile  as  wax  to  mold 
even  into  the  very  thing  he  loathed.  He  might  sa^  that  he 
longed  for  justice  in  the  steud  of  being  spared  by  o.ne  who 
played  with  him  in  his  suffering  as  a  cat  witli  a  bird;  but  he 
woulrl  have  clung  to  exemption  at  all  cost  had  he  beeu  j.uit 
really  to  the  test,  and  accepted  life  on  any  terms  to  escape  the 
horror  and  the  ignominy  of  public  retribution. 

The  old  Israelite  looked  down  on  him,  and,  as  he  saw  that 
pitiful,  tremulous  abasement  before  the  mere  conjured  vision 
of  a  felon's  life,  lifted  his  v/ithered  hands  upward  in  a  grand, 
unconscious  gesture  of  imprecation  and  of  praj^er. 

"  May  the  God  of  Israel  forsake  me  in  my  last  extremity,  if 
I  ever  forsake  him  by  whom  you  have  been  spared  your 
doom!" 

The  vow  Avas  uttered  in  all  the  dignity  and  in  all  the  sim- 
plicity of  truth.  No  matter  what  his  task-master  might  be  to 
others,  no  matter  how  cruel  the  task  he  set,  no  matter  how 
hard  the  lashes  he  gave,  no  matter  how  weary  the  labor  he 
imposed,  to  Ignatius  Mathias  he  was  sacred;  he  had  spared 
Agostino. 

In  that  moment  of  his  oath  of  fidelity,  the  Castilian  Jew, 
the  white-haired  usurer,  the  world-worn  toiler  in  many  cities, 
the  despised  and  reviled  Hebrew,  reached  a  moral  height  of 
which  John  Trevenna  never  had  a  glimpse. 

He  paused  a  while,  gazing  down  upon  the  boy.  For  many 
weeks  they  had  been  parted,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  and 
severed  in  the  tortures  of  susiDcnse;  and  the  sight  of  him,  even 
in  their  j^reseut  anguish,  even  in  the  bitterness  of  the  guilt 
which  had  stained  this  opening  life  with  its  blot,  was  sweet  as 
water  in  a  dry  land  to  the  sear  and  aching  heart  of  the  old  man. 
With  his  own  hands  he  brought  him  wine  and  bread,  and  bade 
him  eat,  breaking  through  all  the  custom  and  ceremonies  of 
his  people,  and  tending  him  with  woman-like  gentleness.  It 
was  thus  that  he  had  made  Agostino  dependent  and  fragile  as 
a  girl,  and  powerless  to  guide  himself  through  thorough  winds 
and  subtle  temptations  of  the  world.  Amidst  the  de]3rivatioa 
and  misery  that  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  Israelite,  the  child 
who  had  the  eyes  of  his  lost  darling  had  never  needed  warmth 
and  light,  and  the  sight  of  flowers,  and  the  song  of  birds,  and 
the  bloom  of  summer  fruits.  Starving  on  a  morsel  of  dried 
fish  himself,  he  had  bought  the  purple  grapes  of  their  own 
sierras  for  Agostino.  And  there  was  something  caressing, 
vivid,  engaging,  appealing  in  the  boy  which  had  repaid  this 


CHAN  DOS.  115 

fully  in   affection,    even   whilst  he  had  gone  furthest  from 
straight  paths. 

lie  drunk  the  Montepulciuiio  wiiio  that  was  brought  him 
now,  and  with  it  youth  and  hoiie  recovered  their  unstrung 
powers,  and  the  dread  despair  tiiat  had  pressed  on  him  in 
Trevenna's  presence  relaxed.  Eat  he  could  not;  but  as  he 
leaned  there,  resting  his  Murillo  head  upon  his  arm  and  ab- 
sently gazing  at  the  red  flicker  of  the  lamp-flame  in  the  wine, 
something  of  light  flashed  over  his  face;  he  raised  his  head 
with  an  eager  gesture. 

"Father,  I  have  a  thought!     Listen.     Last  year,  when  I 
was  in  the  Vega,  I  met  an  Englishman;  it  was  in  the  autumn 
morning,  and  I  was  lying,  doing  nothing,  among  the  grass  as 
he  rode  by.     He  rode  slowly,  and  I  saw  him   weih     1  never 
saw  a  face  like  his;  to  look  at  it  was  like  hearing  music.     He 
caught  my  eyes,  and   stopped  his  horse,  and  asked  the  way 
toward  Granada;  he  had  fallen  on  a  by-path  through  the  vines. 
I  could  scarcely  answer  him  for  looking  at  his  face;  it  was  so 
beautiful.     He  noticed  it,  jjerhaps,  for  he  asked   me  what  I 
thought  of,  that  I  was  so  absent;  and  I  told   him  truly,  '  I 
was  thinking  you  look  hke  David — a  poet-king.'     He  laughed, 
and  said  none  ever  paid  him  a  more  graceful  flattery;  but  it 
was  not  flattery:  I  was  thinking  so.     Then  he  smiled,  and 
looked  more  closely  at  me.     '  You  are  of  the  pure  Sephardim 
race,   are  you  not:'    he  asked  me,  and  I  wondered  how  he 
knew;  for  he  was  not  one  of  us,   but  an  azure-eyed,  golden- 
haired  Gentile.     I  never  saw  him  again  in  Spain;  but  this 
year  1  saw  a  gentleman  coming  down  the  steps  of  one  of  the 
great  mansions  to  go  to  his  carriage  in  the  gas-light  and  1  knew 
him  again;  he  was  in  court  dress,  and  I  asked  who  he  w^as  of 
the   people.     They  said   he  was  very  famous,  very  generous, 
very  high  in  all  distinctions,  and  that  none  ever  asked  him  a 
kindness  in    vain.     He   is  great — you   can   tell    that  by  his 
glance;  he  is  gentle— you  can  tell  that  by  his  smile.     I  "knew 
his  worst  foe  might  ti'ust  to  his  honor  and  trust  to  his  pity.     1 
will  go  to  him  and  tell  him  all,  and   see  if  he  can  free  me. 
He  knows  Itiin,  for  he  was  with  him  that  night." 
"  Ami  his  name,  the  crowds  told  you?" 
"IsChandos." 

The  old  Hebrew,  who  had  listened,  half  beguiled  as  by  a 
poetic  tfilo,  started,  his  hands  clinched  on  the  papers  that  had 
been  left  with  him;  a  change  of  alarm  and  of  eagerness  flashed 
over  Uio  dark  olive  of  his  inscrutable  face;  his  voice  rose  harsh 
and  imperative  in  his  anxiety,  while  a  2:»ang  of  shame  and  of 
disquietude  shook  its  tone 


116  CIIAKDOS. 

"You  dream  like  a  child,  Agostiiio!  Chaiidos!  yes,  he 
knows  him,  and  by  that  very  reason  you  must  never  approach 
him.  You  have  no  choice  but  obedience;  you  are  in  his 
power,  and  his  first  law  is  silence  on  all  that  connects  him  with 
us.  Break  it  by  a  whisper,  and  he  will  spare  you  not  one  mo- 
ment more.  Besides,  this  Chandos,  this  fine  gentleman,  this 
delicate  aristocrat— he  would  shut  his  doors  to  a  beggared 

"  He  would  not,"  murmured  the  boy,  in  a  soft  whisper. 

"  No  matter  whether  he  would  or  no!  Go  near  him,  and 
the  worst  fate  you  dread  will  teach  you  the  cost  of  disobedience. 
Ah,  Agostino,  listen.  Be  patient,  be  docile;  bear  the  yoke 
yet  awhile,  and  I  will  buy  your  safety  with  my  labor;  I  will 
earn  your  liberation  with  my  service.  Only  be  patient,  and 
you  shall  not  sufl'er." 

The  first  words  had  been  spoken  with  the  stern  authority  of 
the  Mosaic  code;  the  latter  closed  in  the  yearning  tenderness 
of  his  infinite  devotion  to  his  only  son. 

Agostino  bowed  his  head  in  silence:  it  was  not  in  him  to 
resist;  it  was  greatly  in  him  to  fear.  His  head  sunk  down 
ujaon  his  arms  once  more  in  the  abandonment  of  a  dejpctiou 
the  more  bitter  and  more  prostrated  because  the  gleam  of  a 
youth's  romantic  hope  had  flickered  over  it  and  had  died  out; 
.he  thought  still  that  the  stranger,  who  had  seemed  to  him  like 
the  poet-king  of  his  own  Israel  when  the  crown  was  first  set 
on  his  proud,  sunlit,  unworn  brow,  could  raise  him  from  his 
despair  and  loose  his  fetters.  The  yellow  lamp  burned  sullenly 
on,  its  thin  smoke  curled  up  in  the  leaden  noisome  air  of  the 
pent  city  alley;  the  night  passed  on,  and  the  boy  still  sat  list- 
less and  heart-broken  there,  while  Ignatius  Mathias,  bent  above 
his  desk,  passed  back  to  the  world  of  hard  acumen,  of  merci- 
less exaction,  of  unerring  requisition,  of  grinding  tribute:  with 
Uhose  exact  figures,  with  those  names  so  fair  in  the  world's 
account,  so  fouled  in  his,  with  those  passages  which  wrote  out 
the  ruin  of  those  in  whom  the  world  saw  no  flaw,  the  evil  en- 
tered into  his  soul,  and  the  higher  nature  perished.  He 
labored  to  free  his  darling;  what  cared  he  how  many  living 
hearts  might  have  the  life-blood  pressed  out  of  them  under  the 
weights  he  was  employed  to*  pile,  so  that  with  that  crimson 
wine  his  task-master  was  pleased  and  satiated? 

"^  II  faut  manijPA'  ou  etre  mange."  Tlie  world  is  divided 
into  spiders  and  flies;  Trevenna  had  chosen  to  join  the  fcimer 
order,  and  his  webs  were  woven  far  and  finely. 

And  '.he  church-clocks  of  the  empty  city  tolled  dully  through 
the  misty  night  the  quarters  and  hours  one  by  one;  and  Uo  the 


CHANDOS.  117 

lad  Agostiao  sat  dreaming  of  that  autumn  morning  in  the 
Vega,  with  the  hot  light  on  the  bronze  leaves  and  purple  clus- 
ters of  the  vines,  and  the  joyous  song  of  a  muleteer  echoing 
from  the  distance,  while  the  Moorish  ruins  of  mosque  and 
castle  rose  clear  against  the  cloudless  skies,  the  grand,  bent 
form  of  the  old  Israelite,  once  majestic  as  any  prophet's  of 
Palestine,  stooped  over  the  crumpled  papers  that  bore  the  sig- 
nature, 

*' Erkest  Chandos." 


CHAPTEK   II. 

THE   DARK     DIADEM. 

Ascot  week  came,  and  at  the  cottage  which  Chandos  usually 
took  for  the  races — a  bijou  of  a  cottage  that  was  used  in  the 
hunting-season  as  a  hunting-box  for  its  proximity  to  the 
queen's  stag-hounds — Trevenna,  with  five  or  six  others,  spent 
the  pleasantest  days  in  the  calendar.  The  gayest  and  most 
fashionable  racing-time  in  the  world,  with  its  crowds  of 
dainty  beauties  and  its  aristocratic  throngs,  was  nowhere  more 
fully  enjoyed  than  at  that  pretty  Ascot  lodge,  with  its  merry 
breakfasts  before  the  drags  came  round,  and  its  witty  dinners 
after  the  day  was  over.  Dubosc,  the  great  chef  ot  Park  Lane, 
went  thither  daily  in  his  little  brown  brougham  to  superintend 
the  meals  of  his  master  and  his  guests  and  throw  in  that 
finishing  artistic  touch  which  made  them  unsurpassable.  The 
party  was  perfectly  chosen,  and  perfectly  attuned  to  each 
other:  there  were  two  peers,  great  on  the  turf,  but  great  as 
wits  as  well;  there  was  a  French  duke,  amusing  as  Gram- 
mont;  there  was  au  author  as  racy  as  Theodore  Hook,  a  fa- 
mous French  artist,  brightest  of  bright  satirists,  an  Italian 
prince,  the  best-natured  and  gayest-hearted  of  men,  and  there 
was  John  Trevenna,  who,  though  people  might  call  him  im- 
pudent, audacious,  pushing,  and  even  a  little  coarse,  was 
nevertheless  to  society — especially  this  sort  of  society — what  a 
comet-year  is  to  claret,  and  a  truffle-harvest  to  gourmets. 
The  party  was  charming,  with  its  leaven  of  gay  Bohemianism 
mingled  with  its  fashionable  atmosphere;  and  it  amused  Chau- 
dos  admirably,  as  he  was  used  to  be  amused  by  life.  From  the 
time  he  was  three  years  old,  when  princesses  had  played  ball 
with  him  and  embassadresses  bribed  him  with  bonbons  to  give 
them  a  kiss,  he  had  been  accustomed  to  live  among  those  who 
beguiled  his  time  for  bini  without  effort;  and  the  world  seemed 
naturally  to  group  itself,  round  him  in  changing  tableaux  that 


118  CHAKDOS. 

never  left  him  a  dull  moment.  He  had  no  need  to  exert  him* 
self  to  seek  pleasure;  pleasure  came  unbidden  in  every  varying 
form  to  him,  seductive  and  protean  as  a  coquette. 

Chandos  loved  horses,  rode  them  superbly,  and  had  all  the 
lore  of  the  desert;  but  the  slang  and  the  society  of  the  turf  he 
abhorred.  He  hated  the  roar  of  a  ring,  the  uproar  of  a  bet- 
ting-room, the  jargon  of  a  trainer,  the  intrigues  of  the  flat. 
But  the  Clarencieux  establishment  had  long  before  his  time 
been  famous  for  good  things;  his  grandfather  the  duke,  too, 
had  won  the  Derby  the  same  year  that  he  was  given  the  Gar- 
ter, and  was  prouder  in  his  heart  of  the  first  Blue  Ribbon  than 
of  the  last;  his  own  horses  had  carried  off  all  the  best  stakes 
in  various  years  at  Newmarket,  Doncaster,  Epsom,  and  Good- 
wood, and  he  always  backed  his  favorites  freely  and  with  great 
spirit;  nothing  was  ever  entered  by  him  that  the  blackest  lit- 
tle rogue  on  the  flat  could  ever  suspect  might  not  be 
•'  meant."  Therefore,  if  his  horseslost,  of  course  he  lost  con- 
siderably, though  this,  owing  to  the  superiority  of  the  strains 
and  the  excellence  of  his  trainer,  had  very  rarely  occurred:  nor 
was  it  likely  to  occur  at  Ascot,  for  far  and  away  at  the  head  of 
the  field  stood,  almost  untouched  by  any  rival  for  the  Cup,  his 
famous  four-year-old  Sir  Galahad. 

It  caused  him  no  uneasiness  that  in  certain  quarters  there 
was  a  disposition  to  offer  against  the  favorite,  and  that  this  was 
done  with  a  regularity  and  a  caution  which  might  have  sug- 
gested the  fact  of  a  commission  being  out  to  lay  against  him. 
He  noticed  it,  indeed,  but  with  that  carelessness  which  made 
him  too  facilely  persuaded,  and  was  content  to  believe  the  ex- 
planation Trevenna  offereU  him,  that  a  rumor  had  got  abroad 
of  Sir  Galahad  having  a  touch  of  cough. 

"  Very  good  thing  for  us,  too,"  said  Trevenna,  shrugging 
his  shoulders.  "  Galahad's  right  as  a  trivet;  and  if  we  can 
heighten  the  whisper  to  influenza,  and  take  all  the  odds  against 
him,  there'll  be  a  pot  of  money  to  show — " 
'  He  stopped ;  he  perceived  that  for  once  his  acumen  had  been 
faulty,  and  had  overreached  itself;  he  saw  that  he  had  tried  a 
dangerous  path  with  a  man  who,  in  all  other  ways,  was  so 
pliant  to  his  hand  through  the  weaknesses  of  insouciance  and 
of  indolence.  Chaiulos  turned  to  him  with  a  look  on  his  face 
that  he  had  never  seen  there.  "  Roguery  makes  a  poor  jest,*' 
he  said,  coldly.  "  If  any  one  win  a  shilling  by  the  rumor, 
knowing  its  falsity,  he  may  take  his  name  off  my  visiting- 
list.  I  will  see  that  the  horse  is  given  his  next  morning  gallops 
over  the  Heath  as  publicly  as  possible,  so  that  it  may  be 
known  he  is  in  perfect  condition." 


CHANDOS.  119 

And  he  did  so.  Treveuna  the  Astute  had  made  a  false  step 
for  the  sole  time  in  their  intercourse,  and  thought  to  himselt', 
■'  Chivalry  on  the  flat!  If  it  ever  come  into  fashion,  we  may 
sow  wheat  on  the  Beacon  Course  and  grow  tares  by  Tottenham 
Corner.     Mercy! — what  a  fool  he  is,  with  all  his  talents!" 

He  did  seem  a  very  great  fool  to  Treveuna;  but  then,  as 
Treveuna  reflected,  there  was  not  much  wonder  in  that,  after 
all,  for  the  man  was  a  poet — in  his  view,  as  in  Lady  Chester- 
tou's,  synonymous  with  saying  he  was  a  lunatic. 

"  Looks  well,  Ernest,"  said  the  Duke  of  Castlemaine,  where 
he  stood,  among  other  members  of  the  Jockey  Club,  eying 
Sir  Galahad  as  he  came  on  the  Heath  on  the  morning  of  the 
Cup-day. 

"  He  can't  be  more  fit,"  answered  Chandos,  with  his  race- 
glass  up;  '*  and  I  don't  see  what  there  is  to  beat  him." 

"  Islothing,"  said  John  Treveuna,  who  was  always  pleas- 
antly positive  to  men  about  their  own  successes.  There  is  not 
a  more  agreeable  social  quality.  "I  think  the  field's  hardly 
strong  enough  to  do  him  full  credit;  there  is  scarce  a  good 
thing  in  it.  Lotus-Lily's  pretty,  no  doubt,  very  taking-look- 
ing, and  her  arms  and  knees  are  good;  but  she  won't  stay." 

With  which  Treveuna,  after  his  general  trenchant  fashion, 
clinched  the  matter,  his  authoritativeness  being  usually  for- 
given for  its  exceeding  accuracy:  he  was  never  found  wrong. 
But  it  highly  displeased  the  grand  old  duke,  the  longest-lived 
and  highest-born  of  all  the  dons  of  the  Jockey  Club,  to  have 
this  audacious  dictator  dealing  out  his  opinions  unbidden  at 
his  elbow.  He  hated  the  fellow,  and  hated  to  see  him  there — 
so  much,  indeed,  that  he  would  have  found  means  to  turn 
him  out  of  the  stand,  had  he  not  been  brought  thither  by  and 
through  his  grandson.  He  pointed  with  his  glass  to  a  long, 
low,  rakish-looking  chestnut  that,  with  hood  and  quarter- 
piece  on,  was  being  walked  quietly  and  unnoticed  about,  for- 
gotten among  the  ruck,  while  Sir  Galahad,  Lotus-Lil}^  and  ; 
the  rest  of  the  cracks  drew  the  ej^es  and  awoke  the  admiration 
of  the  Heath. 

"  You  are  false  to  your  order,  sir,"  he  said,  grimly. 
*'  There's  the  horse  you  should  back,  if  you  were  true  to  your 
form — a  '  rank  outsider,'  entered  under  an  alias,  came  from 
)iobody-knows-wluM-e,  and  foisted  into  running  for  a  cup  while 
he  should  be  standing  in  a  cab.  You  should  have  sympathy, 
sir!" 

The  satire  was  significant  enough  without  the  flery  glance 
that  the  duke's  Phuitageuet  eyes,  blue  as  those  tradition  gives 


120  CHANDOS. 

to  EdNvard  of  York,  flashed  on  him.     The  haughty  old  noble 
traced  descent  from  the  House  of  York. 

Treveuna  could  have  hurled  a  curse  at  his  white  hairs,  witli 
the  snarl  of  a  furious  dog,  so  bitterly  the  arrow  rankled,  so 
keenly  he  felt  that  this  man  alone  read  him  as  he  was.  But 
he  had  trained  himself  better;  he  laughed  without  a  sign  of 
temper. 

"  An  awkward  brute!  I  don't  fancy  him.  Who  likes 
their  own  order,  duke?  You  find  yours  so  dull  sometimes 
that  you  come  to  the  brains  of  Nobodies  to  amuse  youl" 

"Fellow  can  always  hit  you  back  again,"  thought  his 
grace,  "and  never  shows  when  he's  struck.  But  that  over- 
done good  humor  means  mischief:  if  a  man  smiles  under  an 
affront,  he  may  be  above,  but  he's  much  more  likely  to  be 
beneath,  resenting  it.  Now,  I'd  have  respected  the  fellow  if 
he  had  showed  fight  in  hard  earnest;  but  he_  laughs  at  too 
much  not  to  mean  to  take  his  measure  out  for  it  some  day." 

And  the  duke  adjusted  his  Voigtlander,  and  took  a  long  look 
at  the  cracks  as  the  saddling-bell  rang,  and  Sir  Galahad  passed 
him  with  his  flanks  shining  like  satin,  his  knee-action  beauti- 
ful, and  his  calm  reposeful  glance  proudly  eying  the  throng 
that  hung  on  his  steps. 

Chandos  looked  at  the  favorite  as  a  man  must  always  look 
at  the  nearly  certain  winner  of  a  great  stake  when  that  win- 
ner comes  out  of  his  own  establishment  and  has  been  bred 
from  the  famous  strains  that  have  made  the  celebrity  and  the 
success  of  the  stable  for  a  century.  The  passion  of  the  turf 
was  impossible  to  him,  and  to  concentrate  his  life  on  the  win- 
ning or  losing  of  money  would  have  been  as  grotesque  to  his 
fancy  as  to  center  it  on  eating  or  drinking;  his  nature  and  his 
tastes  led  him  to  so  many  forms  of  enjoyment,  to  so  many 
shapes  of  attraction,  that  the  gaming-pleasures  and  lusts  of 
the  "  flat  "  had  but  little  hold  on  him.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  as  strong  an  interest  centered  for  him  in  the  run- 
ning of  his  horses,  of  whom  he  was  both  naturally  proud  and 
passionately  fond.  In  the  ten  years  gone  by  since  his  majority, 
he  liad  won  the  Derby  twice,  and  most  other  cups  and  stakes 
of  note  some  time  or  other.  The  "Chandos  strains"  were 
very  celebrated;  and  he  watched  the  winning  of  his  colors 
with  little,  if  any,  thought  of  the  sums  hazarded  or  them, 
but  with  a  loving  pleasure  in  the  triumphs  of  the  gallant 
beasts  that  had  known  his  voice  and  his  touch  from  the  first 
davs  of  their  colt  or  filiy-hood,  when  they  had  gamboled  by 
their  dam's  side  under  the  broad-spreading  branches  of  the 
oaks  and  elms  at  Clarencieux. 


CHANDOS.  121 

He  did  not  set  himself  the  vahie  oa  Sir  Galahad  that  he  did 
on  a  young  colt  that  was  looked  on  by  his  trainer  as  a  certainty 
for  the  next  Guineas  and  Derby;  but  the  horse  was  a  brilh'ant 
winner,  and  it  was  next  to  an  impossibility  that  anything 
could  beat  him  on  the  Ascot  course,  unless  indeed  it  were 
Lotus- Lily — a  mare  of  considerable  promise  and  performance, 
but  who  was  not  thought  to  have  the  stay  in  her  requisite  for 
(he  running.  The  saddling-bell  rang,  the  telegram  board  was 
hoisted  up,  the  start  was  given;  the  field  swept  out  like  a  fan, 
disentangling  one  from  another,  a  confused  mass,  for  a  mo- 
ment, of  bright  and  various  hues.  Then  from  the  press  there 
launched  forward,  with  the  well-known,  light,  stretching  stride 
that  covered  distance  so  marvelously,  the  Clarencieux  favor- 
ite, shaking  himself  clear  of  all  the  running,  and  leading  at 
a  canter,  which,  unextended  and  easy  as  it  was,  left  Lotus-Lily 
and  Queen  of  the  Fairies  behind  by  two  lengths.  All  eyes  on 
the  course  and  the  stands  were  fastened  on  the  match  between 
the  cracks.  Scarce  any  one  noted  among  the  ruck  one  chest- 
nut outsider,  ngly,  awkward,  but  with  great  girth  of  barrel 
and  power  of  action,  which,  ridden  with  singularly  fine  judg- 
ment by  a  Yorkshire  jock  of  a  little-known  and  merely  local 
reputation,  was  quietly  singling  out  from  the  rest,  and  warily 
waiting  on,  the  two  favorites — so  warily  that  imperceptibly 
yet  surely  he  quickened  his  pace,  passed  Queen  of  the  Fairies, 
and  gained  upon  Lotus-Lily  till  he  struggled  with  her  neck 
by  neck.  So  little  known  was  he,  so  dark  had  he  been  kept, 
that  as  he  ran  even  with  the  mare,  two  lengths  behind  the 
Clarencieux  crack,  half  the  multitude  upon  the  Heath  knew 
neither  his  name  nor  owner,  and  the  fashionable  gatherings 
on  the  stands  looked  at  their  cards  bewildered  as  to  whom  tliis 
outsider  belonged  to,  with  his  feather-weight  in  the  unrecog- 
nized gray-and-yellovv  with  purple  hoops,  that  was  even  with 
the  aristocratic  scarlet-and-white  of  Lotus-Lily's  jockey,  and 
barely  now  a  length  and  a  half  behind  the  famous  blue-and- 
gold  of  Ciiandos's  popular  colors. 

Fleet  as  the  lightning  the  three  swept  on,  no  other  near 
them  even  by  a  bad  third,  their  jocks  becoming  but  mere 
specks  of  color,  whose  course  was  watched  with  breathless, 
strained  anxiety:  extended  now  to  the  uttermost  of  his  splen- 
did pace.  Sir  (hdahad,  conscious  for  the  first  time  of  a  rival 
not  to  be  disdained,  and  perhaps  scarcely  to  be  bfiaten,  ran  like 
the  wind,  the  Diadem  chestnut  gaining  on  him  at  every  yard, 
the  mare  behind  by  ho^ielcss  lengths.  Chandos  leaned  for- 
ward, a!id  his  breath  came  and  went  quickly.  The  duke,  as 
through  his  glass  he  watched  the  race,  that  had  now  become  a 


122  CHANDOS. 

niatcli,  wiLli  the  eager  interest  of  the  chief  of  a  great  Eousq 
whose  name  liad  been  famous  on  the  turf  Bince  the  days  of 
Eclipse  and  Flying  Dutchman,  shifted  his  Voigtlander  un- 
easily as  he  muttered  in  the  depths  of  his  snow-white  beard — 

"The  dark  one  wins,  by  God!" 

The  dark  one  did  win.  Nearer  and  nearer,  faster  and 
faster,  the  ungainly  and  massive  limbs  of  the  Yorkshire  horse 
brought  him  alongside  the  graceful  and  perfect  shape  of  the 
Ascot  favorite;  and  from  the  vast  crowds  upon  the  purple 
heather  of  the  Heath  the  shouts  echoed  the  old  duke's  words, 
"  The  outsider  wins!"  "  Tiie  outsider  has  it!"  A  moment, 
and  they  ran  neck  to  neck;  the  gallant  crack  of  the  Olaren- 
cieux  stable  with  all  the  metal  in  him  roused  to  fire,  strove  for 
a  second  manfully  M'ith  this  unknown  and  unexpected  foe; 
then,  with  a  single  forward  spring,  like  magic,  the  outsider 
outstripped  him  by  a  head,  and  ran  in  at  the  distance,  winner 
of  the  Ascot  cup. 

"Avery  clever  horse,"  said  Chandos,  calmly,  as  he  dropped 
his  race-glass. 

"  D_n  you!"  thought  one  who  stood  next  him.  "  There 
is  no  fun  in  beating  you;  you  never  w/// show  when  j'ou're 
down.^' 

"  Owned  bv  some  very  clever  rascals,'"  said  the  duke,  as  he 
shut  up  his  id'rgnon  with  a  clash,  while  his  eyes  filled  with  the 
hot  fiery  wrath  that  in  his  youth  had  been  swift  and  terrible  as 
a  tempest.  "  The  chestnut  has  been  kept  dark  as  night. 
Whoever  is  at  the  bottom  of  it  has  too  much  science  in  him  to 
have  much  honesty  left.  Mr.  Trevenna,  why  did  you  not  take 
my  advice  and  back  your  own  order?  The  outsider  wins,  you 
see!" 

John  Trevenna  laughed— such  a  merry,  good-natured  laugh 
that  it  was  infectious. 

"  But  I  did  not  believe  in  him,  sir;  nor  do  I  now.  I  shall 
hope  you  will  have  inquiries  made;  for  there  must  be  some- 
thing very  dark  here.  Galahad  looked  well  ridden;  and  if  well 
ridden,  there  was  nothing,  I  should  have  thought,  on  the  turf 
could  have  beaten  him. " 

"  This  is  no  case  for  the  Jockey  Club;  you  know  that,  sir, 
as  well  as  I  do,"  said  his  grace,  sharjily,  with  peremptory 
hauteur.  "  The  chestnut's  won  fairly,  so  far  as  the  running 
goes;  the  roguery  has  been  beforehand.'" 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  It  must  have"  taken  a  deuced  deal  of  roguery  to  have  kept 
such  a  fiier  as  that  ugly  brute  dark  all  the  three  years  of  hi." 


CHANDOS.  123 

life.     Chandos,  how  cool  you  are!    If  I  owned  Sir  Galahad,  1 
should  tear  that  Diadem's  jock  out  of  saddle.'' 

Chandos  lifted  his  eyebrows. 

"  My  bay  is  beaten;  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  The  best 
thing  to  da  is  to  forget  it  as  soon  as  possible.  I  will  go  and 
talk  to  the  ladies:  they  always  gild  the  bitter  pills  of  one's  ad- 
versities." 

And  lie  wlio  had  never  known  the  single  pang  of  a  real  ad- 
versity, and  who  now  felt  but  the  wish  to  escape  as  speedily 
as  possible  from  the  sting  of  a  momentarily  keen  and  painful 
disappointment,  went,  accordingly,  out  of  the  stand,  and 
through  the  circle  of  his  sympathizers,  to  the  carriages  of  his 
fairer  frietids. 

"Oh,  how  grieved  you  must  be! — that  beautiful  horse!" 
murmured  tlie  Queen  of  Lilies,  in  the  sweetest  music  of  her 
gentle  voice. 

Chandos  smiled,  a  little  gravely  and  sadly  for  him.  "  I  am 
grieved  for  those  who  lose  their  money  through  my  mistaken 
confidence  in  my  own  stable.  I  can  not  understand  now  how 
anything  could  jjeat  Sir  Galahad." 

"  And  you  have  lost  heavily  yourself?"  she  pursued. 

He  laughed — his  gay  and  careless  mellow  laughter.  "  Oh, 
that  ouly  serves  me  right.  I  never  make  a  calamity  of  money. 
To  talk  of  fairer  things — at  what  houses  shall  we  meet  to- 
morrow night?     You  go,  of  course,  to  Lady  Glencaster's?" 

"  Ernest,  do  you  know  I  have  a  strong  belief  that  your 
friend  is  a  most  consummate  scoundrel?"  said  the  Duke  of 
Castlemaine,  with  emphasis,  as  he  took  him  aside  a  moment 
before  dinner  in  the  drawing-room  of  the  Ascot  cottage. 

Chandos  looked  at  him  in  excessive  surprise.  "  My  dear 
duke,"  he  answered,  gently,  "  that  is  not  the  way  I  can  hear 
any  friend  spoken  of,  even  by  you." 

"  Pshaw!"  said  his  grace,  with  his  fiery  wrath  lighting 
again  those  leonine  eyes  that  had  flashed  over  the  ranks  of 
Soult's  and  Junot's  armies  as  he  led  his  dragoons  down  on  to 
the  serried  square.  "  I  suppose,  if  I  see  your  friends  forging 
your  name,  then  I  am  to  be  delicate  to  warn  you?  You  are 
as  blind  as  a  woman,  Ernest.  I  will  stake  you  ten  thousand 
to  nothing  that  that  fellow  Trevenna  is  at  the  bottom  of  this 
affair  with  the  dark  horse." 

"  Trevenna!"  echoed  Cliandos,  in  amazement,  yet  amused- 
ly. "  My  dear  sir,  Trevenna  never  bets  the  worth  of  a  fiver. 
What  should  he  gain  by  doing  or  knowing  of  such  a  thing? 
He  has  all  the  conlidence  of  my  trainer.  If  ho  wants  to  make 
money  on  the  turf,  he  would  have  made  it  scores  of  times  ere 


124  CHAN  DOS. 

this  on  my  ci'acks.  Besides,  think  what  a  horrible  imputa* 
tion!'^ 

"  His  shoulders  are  broad  enough  to  bear  it/'  said  the  duke, 
grimly;  "  they  have  borne  woi'se  before  now,  I  dare  say. 
Where  did  you  pick  the  fellow  up?" 

"I  met  him  abroad."  Chandos  would  no  more  have  told 
hotv  they  met  at  Rouge  et  Xoir,  and  how  he  rescued  the  young 
English  traveler  from  a  debtors'  prison,  than  he  would  have 
counted  the  glasses  of  wine  Trevenna  drank  at  his  table. 

"  Humph  I — without  introduction?" 

"  Well,  one  makes  many  acquaititances  so  on  the  Conti- 
nent." He  smiled  as  he  thougiit  that  their  only  introduction 
had  been  through  the  Baden  bank  and  Baden  prison. 

"Certainly;  but  we  don't  bring  them  home  with  us,"  re- 
joined his  grace,  with  a  still  grim  signiticauce.  "  What  ac- 
count did  you  have  from  him  of  himself?" 

"  Really,  I  have  forgotten;  I  was  only  a  boy — eighteen  or 
nineteen,  I  think." 

The  duke  tapped  his  Louis  Quatorze  snuff-box  with  an  omi- 
nous dissatisfaction. 

"  You  are  a  very  clever  man,  Ernest;  but  you  are  too  easily 
fooled,  if  you  will  pardon  my  saying  so.  You  can  believe  it  or 
disbelieve  it,  as  you  please:  but  I  am  as  certain  as  that  I  stand 
on  this  hearth-rug  that  the  fellow  you  defend  knows  more  than 

he  ought  about  the  history  and   the  running  of  that  d d 

Yorkshire  chestnut." 

With  which  the  old  Nestor  of  the  Jockey  Club  took  his  Bo- 
lorigaro  in  a  grand  and  silent  wrath,  unappeased,  as  Chandos 
smiled  still,  and  answered  him,  unconvinced: 

"  It  is  your  overkindness  for  me,  my  dear  duke,  that  makes 
you  so  unusually  suspicious.  I  wish  I  were  as  satisfied  of  every 
one's  good  will  to  me  as  I  am  of  poor  Trevenna's.  Good 
heavens!  I  would  as  soon  believe  that  my  butler  plans  to  poi- 
son me  in  my  champagne,  and  that  my  valet  means  to  assas- 
sinate me  as  I  dress  for  dinner  I" 

He  laughed  lightly  as  he  spoke,  and  turned  to  his  other 
guests,  who  just  then  entered  the  drawing-room — among  them 
Trevenna  himself. 

The  dinner  was  of  the  choicest.  Dubosc,  with  a  touch  of 
kindly  feeling  that  this  great  master  was  never  without  (lively 
and  sympathetic  Parisian  that  he  was),  having  heard  of  the 
turf  disappointments  of  an  employer  who  seldom  failed  to  ap- 
preciate his  genius,  tendered  consolation  in  delicate  thought- 
fulness  by  a  sudden  and  marvelous  inspiration  of  artistic  in- 
vontioji,  producing  results  with,  a  turbot  such  as  Europe  had. 


CHANDOS.  125 

never  heard  or  conceived,  and  to  which  he  positively  attended 
with  his  own  hands  throughout  the  critical  moments  of  prep- 
aration, watched  breathlessly  by  his  satellites  and  subordi- 
nates. Chandos  and  his  guests  were  connoisseurs,  on  whom 
such  eprouvette  pnsiiive,  to  use  Brillat-Savarin's  term,  could 
not  be  tried  but  with  fullest  success.  Chandos  sent  a  message 
of  appreciation  to  the  great  chef  himself;  and  Dubosc  was 
conscious  that  the  employer  who  could  have  remembered  a 
horse's  running  ill,  while  he  was  consoled  with  such  a  triumjih 
as  the  new  turhot  aux  Clarencieux,  would  have  been  a  man 
whose  soul  was  dead  indeed. 

"  He  felt  it?"  asked  the  master  of  the  stately  fellow-func- 
tionary in  black,  with  the  silver  chain  of  office  round  his  neck, 
who  brought  him  the  message  of  recognition.  "  You  think  he 
felt  it!     There  is  so  much  in  soul!" 

"  I  am  sure  he  felt  it,"  replied  the  other,  solemnly.  "  He 
has  always  jiroper  feeling  on  those  matters." 

"  Yes,"  sighed  Dubosc,  "  but  he  has  not  the  devotion  that 
one  could  wish;  a  fine  taste,  but  careless.  He  thinks  too 
much  of  pictures  and  statues,  and  all  those  trifles,  to  bring 
liis  mind  rightly  to  the  great  science." 

"  There  is  something  in  that,"  assented  Silver-Chain,  re- 
gretfully. "  To  see  it  really  felt,  you  should  have  seen  that 
little  vulgar  creature,  that  Trevenna,  taste  it.  Tliere  was  an 
eprouvette  !" 

"  Ah,"  sighed  Dubosc,  still,  "  but  it  is  sad  wlien  the  good 
taste  goes  out  of  the  great  orders!  He  felt  it,  did  he?  That 
man  vv^ill  have  a  career!" 

Dubosc's  eprouvette  did  not  fail  to  restore  the  life  and  wit 
to  the  jmrty  which  it  had  in  some  degree  lost  by  the  losing  of 
Galahad;  for  all  had  laid  more  or  less  heavy  sums  on  the 
favorite.  Gaycty  and  bonmots  resumed  their  customary 
reign;  the  Italian  prince  and  the  French  artist  were  most 
brilliant  on  the  stimulus  of  the  matchless  turbot  and  the  no 
less  matchless  wines.  Chandos  always  lent  himself  quickly 
with  the  easiest  will  to  be  consoled;  and  the  hours  sy)arkled 
along  on  swift  feet  and  to  pleasant  cadence,  despite  the  disaster 
of  the  Cup-day.  Trevenna  was  in  the  highest  spirits,  which 
he  checked  slightly  when  he  caught  the  azure  flash  of  the 
duke's  eyes,  but  not  enough  to  prevent  his  being  the  salt  and 
savor  of  the  dinner-party,  as  was  liis  custom  everywhere.  They 
lingered  long  over  their  pine-apples  and  peaches,  their  Lafitte 
and  Joliannisberger;  and  after  cofl'ee  they  jjlayed  whist  in  the 
pretty  little  Ascot  drawing-room  till  the  sun  looked  in  through 
the  grape-tendrils  and  vine-leaves  about  the  casements;  and  by 


12G  CHANDOS. 

the  dawn  Chaudos  had  forgot  his  first  contretemps,  his  first 
auuo\'ance,  as  though  it  had  never  been. 

In  the  sunny  sunmier  morning,  as  Trevenna  sauntered  into 
his  bbdroom  (he  had  no  valet,  as  hr.s  been  said,  and  employed 
servants  scarcely  at  all)  he  tossed  thirty  sovereigns  he  had  won 
from  his  host  at  whist  down  on  his  dressing-table,  and  throw- 
ing himself  into  his  arm-chair,  indulged  in  a  genuine  hearty 
peal  of  laughter,  that  rang  out  through  the  oj)en  window  to- 
ward the  quiet,  solitary,  heather-purpled  expanse  of  the  Heath. 

"'  Sold  the  whole  turf,  by  Jovel"  he  murmured;  "  and  forty 
thousand  netted  by  commission,  as  I  live,  if  there's  a  farth- 
ing! What  a  day's  work!  Trevenna,  Z'O^i  enfant,  really  you. 
are  a  clever  fellow." 

He  admired  himself  with  a  cordial,  almost  wondering,  ad- 
miration that  was  very  different  from  vanity,  and  more  lilie 
the  self-content  and  self-apjDlause  with  which  a  man  who  has 
been  up  every  col  and  peak  in  the  Alpine  range  regards  the 
names  of  his  hazardous  and  successful  feats  burnt  in  on  the 
shaft  of  his  Alpenstock.  He  laughed  again,  at  liimself,  when 
he  lay  back  in  the  cozy  dejjths  of  his  chair,  with  his  hands 
plunged  into  his  trousers'-pockets,  and  genuine  self-satisfac- 
tion brightly  set  on  every  line  of  his  face.  There  is  an  exhil- 
aration to  the  heart  of  the  successful  engineer  who  sees  every 
morass  drained,  every  ravine  bridged,  every  girder  made 
strong,  every  obstacle  overcome,  by  his  own  indomitable  en- 
ergy, and  watches  the  viaduct  of  his  own  rearing  and  planning 
span  the  mighty  distance  that  seemed  at  first  to  laugh  his 
puny  efforts  to  conquer  it  to  scorn.  This  was  the  exhilaration 
Ti'evenna  felt  now.  That  he  was  reaching  his  success  by 
dark,  by  crooked,  by  unscrupulous  ways,  took  nothing  from 
his  enjoyment.  They  were  to  him  what  the  morass,  the  ravine 
and  the  quicksands  are  to  the  engineer.  Had  his  road  been 
straight  and  smooth,  where  would  have  been  this  joyous  excite- 
ment in  his  own  victories,  this  triumphant  zest  in  his  own 
engineering  science? 

As  he  took  off  his  dress-coat,  undid  his  neck-tie  and  lighted 
a  cigar,  he  pulled  the  curtains  aside  and  leaned  out  of  the  win- 
dow into  the  soft  summer-dawn  air.  Kot  that  he  cared  a  whit 
for  the  heliotrope  and  mignonette  odors  rising  from  tlie  gar- 
den beneath,  for  the  dews  on  the  blossoming  lindens,  for  the 
sunrise  on  the  bloom  of  the  heather;  those  tilings  were  to 
Chandos's  taste,  not  to  his;  but  he  liked  to  lock  at  that  quiet, 
deserted  Heath,  where  the  dark  Diadem  had  borne  off  the  cup 
from  tlie  favorite.  It  had  put  forty  thousand  in  his  pocket, 
or,  rather,  in  those  far-away  American  and  Indian  markets 


CHANDOS.  127 

where  the  penniless  man-about-tovvu  put  every  penny  even  that 
he  won  at  whist  or  loo,  in  sure  and  secret  speculations;^  but  it 
had  a  still  sweeter  pleasure  than  liiy  in  the  money  for  him. 

"  So  the  oulsiier  beat  the  Clarencieux  crack!"  he  thought, 
with  a  smile.  "A  prophecy!  Duke,  I  won't  quarrel  with 
you:  I'll  back  my  order  to  svin. " 


CHAPTER  III. 

BUTTERFLIES   ON    THE    PIX. 

'*  Eenest,  are  you  going  to  marry?''  asked  nis  Grace,  dry- 
ly, in  the  bay-windov/  of  White's. 

Chandos  looked  up,  in  amazement. 

"Marry?     Heaven  forbid!" 

"  Then  don't  go  after  that  beautiful  daughter  of  Ivors. 
She  will  marry  you  in  a  month  or  two  more,  if  you  do,  whether 
you  wish  it  or  not." 

Chandos  moved  restlessly;  he  did  not  like  the  introductiop 
of  painful  topics,  and  marriage  was  a  very  painful  one  in  his 
view. 

"  U  yon  do  marry,"  pursued  the  duke,  remorselessly,  "  take 
the  Princess  Louise;  she  is  lovelier  than  anything  else  the  sun 
shines  on,  and  has  the  only  rank  from  which  a  woman  can 
love  1J0H  without  a  suspicion  of  interested  motives." 

"  My  dear  duke,  I  am  totally  innocent  of  the  faintest  inten- 
tions to  marry  anybody!" 

Nevertheless,  the  subject  was  not  acceptable  to  him,  and  he 
looked  a  little  absently  out  into  St.  James's  Street  with  a  cer- 
tain shade  of  uncertainty  and  of  restlessness  on  him;  whereas 
the  moment  previous  he  had  been  watching  the  women_  in 
their  carriages  through  his  eyeglass,  with  the  idlest  and  easiest 
languor  of  a  warm,  day  toward  the  close  of  the  season. 

"Marry?  No;  not  for  a  universe,"  mused  Chandos.  A 
few  hours  afterward  he  entered  his  house  in  Park  Lane,  to 
make  his  toilet  for  a  dinner  at  Buckingham  Palace,  and  turned 
with  a  sudden  thought  to  his  maitre  d'hotel,  as  he  passed  him 
in  the  liall.  "  Telegraph  to  Kyde,  Wentwood,  for  them  to 
have  the  yacht  ready;  and  tell  Alexis  to  prepare  to  start  with 
me  to-morrow  morning.     I  shall  go  to  the  East." 

Ilis  yacht  was  always  kept  in  sading  order,  and  his  servants 
were  accustomed  to  travel  into  Asia  Minor  or  to  Mexico  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice.  Chandos  was  used  to  say,  very  justly,  that  the 
chief  privilege  of  money  was  liiat  it  made  you  quit  of  the  obli- 
gation to  meditate  a  thing  five  minutes  befni-A  you  did  it. 


128  CI-IANDOS. 

Looking  long  at  anything,  whether  travel  or  what  not,  always 
brushes  the  bloom  off  it.  He  liked  to  wake  in  the  morning 
and,  if  the  I'aucy  took  him,  be  away  without  a  second's  consid- 
eration to.  the  glow  of  the  new  Western  world  or  the  patri- 
archal poetry  of  the  East;  and  so  well  were  his  wishes  always 
provided  for  that  he  went  to  sleep  in  one  place  and  unclosed 
his  eyes  in  another,  almost  as  though  he  joossessed  the  magic 
floating  carpet  of  Prince  Hassan. 

'  The  next  morning  the  "Aphrodite''  steamed  out  of  Eyde 
harbor  on  the  way  to  Italj^,  the  Levant  and  Constantinople, 
while  its  owner  lay  under  an  awning,  with  great  lumps  of 
ice  in  his  golden  cool  Ehine  wine,  and  the  handsome  eyes  of 
Flora  de  I'Orme  flashing  laughter  downv/ard  on  him  while  she 
leaned  above,  fanning  his  hair  with  an  Indian  feather-screen. 
The  duke's  words  had  acted  like  a  spell;  but  in  his  abrupt  de- 
jiarture  there  was  one  person  he  had  not  forgotten.  On  his 
dressing-table  lay  a  note  to  Trevenua,  bidding  him  make  use 
of  his  moors  in  Inverness-shire  with  the  Twelfth  as  he  pleased, 
or,  if  he  preferred  it,  give  the  Scottish  shootings  to  any  friend 
he  preferred,  and  take  any  guests  he  liked  dov.'n  to  Claren- 
cieux  for  the  maguificent  preserves  of  that  ancient  place. 

These  reversions  and  donations  of  windfalls  and  of  pleasant 
places  to  lend  or  to  invite  to  were  fast  making  Trevenua  very 
popular  among  that  large  class  of  men-on-the-town — dandies, 
do-nothings,  authors,  artists  and  club-loungers — who  have  a 
certain  reputation  that  floats  them  in  the  world,  but  no  cer- 
tainty of  entree  to  tiie  good  houses,  and  no  means  to  purchase 
for  themselves  the  pleasures  of  the  moors  and  coverts.  It  be- 
gan to  get;  him  courted  among  them;  and  he  was  a  very  genial 
host,  loyally  lavish  with  Chandos's  wines,  most  good-naturedly 
ready  with  offers  of  hospitality  to  Chandos's  empty  houses,  so 
■  much  po  that  men  almost  forgot,  while  they  stayed  with  him, 
that  wines  and  houses  were  not  both  his  own. 

"  Gone  to  the  East!  By  Jove,  I'll  go  and  find  the  Chester- 
ton," thought  Trevenua,  with  all  the  relish  of  a  school-boy 
■''or  sowing  mischief,  as  he  read  the  note  and  heard  of  his  pa- 
tron's departure.  He  was  a  little  sorry  Chandos  had  gone;  he 
never  liked  losing  him  from  under  Ms  eyes;  but  he  was  fully 
consoled  by  the  prospect  of  reigning  as  viceroy  at  Clarencieux 
and  of  seeing  the  mortification  of  the  two  daughters  of  Ivors. 
They  were  as  poor  as  rats;  they  could  never  do  him  any  good. 
Trevenua  felt  at  liberty  to  tease  them  just  as  he  hked.  A  re- 
striction was  too  otten  put  on  his  merry,  malicious  mousing  by 
a  prudential  recollection  of  the  social  status  of  his  mice,  and  of 
the  use  they  might  be  to  him  in  nibbling  a  way  for  him  into 


CHANDOS.  129 

patriciati  pantries.  Here  the  mice  were  very  poor:  so  he 
tracked  Lady  Chesterton  and  her  sister  to  a  garden-j^arty,  and 
eat  his  pine-apple  in  most  admirably  feigned  carelessness  and 
unconsciousness  close  to  the  two  ladies  under  a  Lebanon  cedar. 
He  knew  the  consternation  he  should  scatter  through  society 
by  his  news. 

"  I  don't  see  Mr.  Chandos  here  this  morning,"  said  Lady 
Chesterton,  turning  to  him  with  a  bland  smile,  condescending 
to  be  civil  because  she  was  curious.  She  was  also  a  little 
uneasy;  otherwise,  be  sure,  she  would  never  have  had  recourse 
to  that  "  vulgar  little  toady,"  as  her  ladyship  designated  the 
acute  outsider. 

"  No,  he  isn't  here,"  assented  Trevenna,  indifferentl3^     He 
had  now  put  this  handsome  empress  butterfly  on  the  ^joint  of 
his  pin,  and  went  leisurely  about  it. 
"  He  is  well,  1  hope?"  she  pursued. 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  Never  was  ill  in  his 
life,  that  I  know  of;  perfect  constitution." 

"  What  a  rude,  insufferable  bear!"  thought  the  unhappy 
butterfly;  but  she  was  still  more  uneasy  than  ever,  and  had  no 
recourse  so  good  as  the  bear:  so  she  resumed  her  inquiries. 
"  Do  you  know  where  he  is  to-day?  I  have  something  to  tell 
him  about  Rose  Berri  china." 

"  Your  ladyship  must  send  it  by  post,  then."  And  Tre- 
venna laughed  to  himself  as  he  saw  the  first  irrepressible  writha 
of  his  victim  on  the  pin. 

"  By  post!     Has  he  left  town?" 
Trevenna  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  By  this  time  he  is  midway  across  to  L'Orient.  He  has 
taken  his  yacht  to  go  down  south  and  eastward." 

"  So  early!"  Trained  and  icy  woman  of  the  world  though 
Bhe  was,  she  could  not  repress  the  pallor  that  blanched  her  lip, 
the  anxiety  that  loomed  in  her  handsome  eyes.  The  Queen  of 
Lilies  stood  near.  Hearing  also,  she  was  silent  and  very  pale. 
"  Well,  Ascot  was  late,"  answered  Trevenna,  cheerfully. 
"  He  generally  does  stay  for  Goodwood,  to  be  sure;  but,  you 
see,  he  has  had  so  many  London  seasons,  and  tliere's  such 
hard  running  made  on  him,  I  think  he  gets  sick  of  it." 

This  thrust  the  pins  in  cruelly,  through  the  delicate  winga 
of  the  brilliant  butterflies.  "  That  coarse  horror!"  thought 
Lady  Chesterton,  with  a  shiver  of  disgusted  wrath;  but  her 
heart  was  very  heavy,  and  she  had  to  conceal  her  chagrin  as 
best  she  might  with  all  the  garden-groups  fluttering  around 
her  and  viewing  her  impaled.  "  Will  he  bo  away  long?"  sha 
asked  of  her  tormenter. 
ft 


130  CHANDOS. 

*'  Oh,  dear,  yes,'*sa:cl  Trevenna,  carelessly.  ''  Gone  to  hia 
summer-palace  on  the  Bosphorus;  takes  the  Morea  and  the 
Levant  on  the  way.  Poetic  man,  you  know!  likes  that  sort  of 
thing;  loves  Greece;  enjoys  Corfu.  I  hate  'em  both.  Snakea 
and  old  stones  in  the  one;  rocks,  rags  and  bad  ragouts  in  the 
other.  '  Kains  and  scenery,'  they  tell  you.  I  like  stucco  and 
pantomime  scenes.  Besides,  they  always  fry  so  villainously  in 
those  hot  places;  glad  to  get  away  from  the  fire,  perhaps. 
When  anybody  talks  of  the  Acropolis  and  tlie  Alhambra,  I  al< 
ways  smell  oil  and  garlic  and  feel  myself  starving  in  memory 
on  a  melon." 

He  glanced  at  his  butterflies  as  he  chattered,  and  saw  that 
the  pin  was  entering  their  souls  like  iron.  He  thrust  it  down 
a  little  deeper  as  Lady  Chesterton  asked,  with  a  voice  that, 
despite  herself,  could  not  be  careless; 

"  Mr.  Chandos  will  be  long  before  he  returns,  then,  I  sup- 
pose?" 

"Won't  comeback  till  next  spring,"  assented  Trevenna. 
"  He'll  winter  in  Paris;  always  does,  as  you  know.  Delicious 
liotel  that  is  of  his,  by  the  way,  in  the  Champs  Elysees. 
Clarencieux  isn't  likely  to  see  anything  of  him." 

Which  was  the  unkindest  cut  of  all,  seeing  that  Trevenna 
knew  very  well  that  the  baroness  had  persuaded  her  husband 
to  take  a  little  estate  near  Clarencieux  for  two  years'  shooting, 
on  jDurpose  that  the  Queen  of  Lilies  might  conquer  in  the 
country  if  she  failed  in  the  town.  The  husband  had  grumbled 
because  he  could  ill  afford  it.  He  was  terribly  poor;  but  he 
had  been  persuaded  into  it  by  the  assurance  from  his  wife  of 
Chandos's  admiration  of  his  fair  sister-in-law;  and  now  Chan- 
dos was  not  going  to  Clarencieux! 

"  I've  paid  you  off,  my  lady,"  thought  Trevenna,  finishing 
his  ice.  "  You've  found  what  it  is  to  call  me  *'  a  vulgar  little 
wretch  who  lives  nobody  knows  where. '  " 

Not  that  Trevenna  had  any  particular  dislike  to  these  two 
women,  beyond  his  general  dislike  to  all  and  any  members  of 
the  aristocratic  onler;  but  as  the  boy  feels  no  dislike  to  the 
cockchafer  he  spins  on  a  string,  but  finds  amusement  in  its 
pain,  and  therefore  sticks  a  crooked  pin  through  its  poor  hum- 
ming body  and  puts  it  to  jaain  accordingly,  so  Trevenna  felt 
and  did  with  all  humanity. 

Gilles  de  Retz  enjoyed  the  physical  convulsions  of  his  vic- 
tims; Trevsnna,  as  became  a  more  hamoristic  temper  and  a 
more  refined  age,  enjoyed  seeing  the  mental  contortions  of  hi& 

And  yet  the  fellow  had  his  good  points — some  very  good 
points  indeed.     He  had  indomitable  energy,  perseverance,  in 


CHAKDOS.  131 

dustry,  patience,  self-denial — the  greatest  virtues  in  the  Car- 
lylese  school,  which  deifies  Work.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been 
well  if  both  Trevenna  and  that  School  had  alike  considered 
more  the  worth  and  meaning  of  the  purpose,  before  they  gava 
an  apotheosis  to  the  fact,  of  labor. 


The  Lily  Queen  and  her  sister  drove  homeward  in  perfect 
silence  from  the  garden-party,  where  society  was  lamenting 
with  its  softest  siglis  the  loss  of  its  idol  and  leader — a  loss  that 
was  much  more  a  blow  to  the  season  than  if  the  court  had  gone 
into  seclusion:  the  true  Eoyalty  of  society  is  Fashion.  There 
was  a  dead  silence  between  them  till  they  reached  the  pretty 
little  violet-and-gold  boudoir  on  the  top  of  the  staircase  that 
was  specially  dedicated  to  the  use  of  Lady  Valencia.  Then 
the  baroness  unclasped  her  diamond  aigrette,  and  flung  off  her 
Chantiliy  laces  with  an  impetuous,  passionate  bitterness  in  the 
action,  aud  looked  a  world  of  scorn  out  of  her  black  eyes  on  to 
her  fair  sister. 

"  I  told  you  so,  Valencia!  I  knew  you  would  never  win  him.  ■" 
The  Queen  of  Lilies  answered  nothing,  but  stood  there  in 
her   still   and   matchless  grace,  a  slight  flush  of  proud,  re- 
strained pain  only  passing  over  her  face. 

"  I  told  you  I  knew  it  was  utterly  useless,'*  went  on  Lady 
Chesterton,  with  woman's  favorite  reproach — '*  Je  Vavais  Men 
dif."  "Courted,  sought,  flattered,  worshiped  as  he  is,  do 
you  suppose  he  would  surrender  his  liberty  and  marry?  Ri- 
diculous!  I  told  you  the  Princess  Louise  d'Alve  is  actually 
dying  of  love  for  him:  they  would  give  him  to  her  to-morrow. 
She  is  as  beautiful  as  you  are,  though  you  think  nobody  can 
be;  aud  Chandos  cares  for  her  no  more  than  he  cares  for  that 
tabouret  at  your  feet.  No  more  he  does  for  you.  Xo  more 
he  ever  did  for  anybody,  unless  it  were  that  infamous  little 
French  countess  who  has  nothing  in  the  world  but  her  eyes 
and  her  figure.     I  told  you  you  could  never  touch  him!" 

Still  the  Queen  of  Lilies  said  nothing.  With  a  haughty  but 
admirable  self-command,  she  held  her  peace  under  the  lash  of 
her  sister's  words.  Great  ladies  do  not  always  take  their  high 
breeding  home  with  them  to  the  privacy  of  their  own  boudoirs; 
and  the  baroness,  though  daughter  to  the  Marquis  of  Ivors, 
was  poor,  disappointed,  and  bitterly  at  feud  with  all  creation, 
because  she  had  not  been  born  a  man  to  hold  the  Ivors  title. 

"  And  there  is  that  place  near  Clarencieux  hired  for  noth- 
ing!" her  ladyship  bewailed,  with  tears  of  mortification  in  lier 
eves.     "  I  am  sure  I  hate  the  country.     I  would  fifty  times 


133  CHAOT)OS. 

rather  hsive  gone  to  Baden  orsomewliere  abroad;  and  we  shall 
be  obh"ged  to  go  and  live  there.  Chess  won't  let  the  money  be 
wasted;  he  made  such  a  fuss  about  ever  taking  it.  We  might 
meet  Chandos  at  Paris,  of  course,  if  we  were  like  anybody  else; 
but  we  haven't  income  enough  to  live  ii>  any  style  there,  and 
go  to  the  Tuileries  and  all  that,  as  you  must  do  if  you're  iu 
Paris  at  all.  We  shall  be  moped  down  at  that  wretched  place 
in  the  country  all  winter  for  nothing.  I  am  joositive  you 
might  have  done  better  if  you  had  tried.  You  might  have 
made  him  say  something  serious  the  night  before  last  at  the 
court  ball.  He  certainly  admired  you — admired  you  very 
greatly!" 

The  baroness  stopped,  for  lack  of  breath,  reckless  that  her 
last  charge  against  her  sister  totally  nullified  her  first  state- 
ments— no  one  overstays  to  be  consistent  in  anger — and  paused 
in  fiery  wrath  and  scorn,  swaying  her  parasol  to  and  fro  ia 
impatient  bitterness. 

The  Lily  Queen  lifted  her  drooped  lids. 

"  I  regret  you  should  be  put  to  any  inconvenience  through 
me,*'  she  said,  coldly.  "  You  will  allow  that  /  never  sug- 
gested we  should  go  near  Clarencieux.  I  never  approved  of 
the  appearance  it  would  inevitably  bear." 

"  That  is  all  the  gratitude  I  receive!"  cried  her  sister,  with 
considerable  passion,  the  greater  because  she  was  conscious 
that  her  own  maneuvers  for  the  brilliant  owner  of  Clarencieux 
had  gone  beyond  what  her  sister  deemed  delicate  or  wise.  *'  I 
suppose  you  will  say  that  it  was  I  who  suggested  you  should 
cvear  the  '  Lucrece  *  dress  at  his  fancy  ball." 

"  As  it  was,'"*  said  the  Lady  Valencia,  calmly. 

"  Indeed!  Oh,  very  well!"  cried  her  sister,  with  the  laugh 
that  with  women  denotes  the  last  climax  of  passion.  "  Die 
unmarried  and  penniless,  Valencia,  if  you  choose;  it  is  no 
matter  to  mel  Only  remember  you  have  not  fifty  pounds  a 
year  of  your  own,  and  my  milliner's  bills  come  already  to 
more  than  my  husband  will  pay  without  recourse  to  his  Jews; 
J  shall  add  yours  to  them  no  more  after  this." 

With  that  last  shaft  home  the  peeress  flashed  from  the  room 
in  a  storm  of  fi  uttering  lace  and  fiery  wrath.  The  Queen  ol 
Lilies  stood  silent  and  motionless  some  moments  more,  then 
she  went  almost  mechanically  to  the  door,  closed  it,  slipped  its 
bolt,  and,  sinking  down  on  one  of  the  couches,  dropped  her 
proud  head  on  her  hands  and  sobbed  as  bitter  tears  as  any 
woman  ever  shed. 

The  last  evening  light  streamed  through  the  painted  panes 
of  her  exotic-shrouded  window,  and,  straying  along  the  bright 


CHANDOS.  133 

Eath  of  the  little,  dainty,  gorgeously  colored  boudoir,  fell  across 
er  fair  brow  aud  delicate  hands,  with  their  antique  rings 
gleaming  on  their  whiteness,  which  were  clasped  in  paia  till 
the  glittering  points  of  the  stones  cut  the  skin. 

Was  it  love  or  vanity  that  was  thus  cruelly  wounded?  Was 
it  the  broken  ambition  for  which  she  wept,  or  the  broken  hope 
of  a  softer  desire?  Was  it  the  heart  that  was  lost,  the  voice 
that  was  silent,  the  eloquent  eyes  that  looked  on  hers  no  more, 
that  were  so  bitterly  lamented?  or  was  it  the  leadership  of  the 
fashion,  the  stately  magnificence  of  Clarencieux,  the  prize 
that  all  her  sex  sought  and  coveted — the  attainted  Marquisate 
of  the  Chandos  which  with  any  moment  might  be  restored — 
that  were  the  objects  of  that  mortified  and  humiliated  grief? 
Who  shall  say? 
Some  love,  certes,  there  was  in  it. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
"straight  was  a  path  of  gold  for  him." 

If  the  Lily  Queen  hoped  for  remembrance  from  her  lost 
lover,  she  hoped  for  a  well-nigh  hopeless  thing. 

The  kaleidoscope  of  Chandos' s  life  changed  so  incessantly 
that  it  was  rarely  indeed  any  picture  that  had  been  whirled 
past  him  retained  the  slightest  claim  on  his  memory.  He  was 
always  seeing  one  that  seemed  better  than  the  last.  Partly 
this  was  traceable  to  his  own  temperament,  but  chiefly  it  was 
due  to  the  avidity  with  which  all  his  world  catered  for  him. 
Now,  as  the  yacht  swept  on  her  gay  way,  there  could  be  noth- 
ing more  charming  than  that  voyage  through  "isles  of  eter- 
nal summer'*  and  through  seas  laughing  in  an  endless 
sunlight.  Pausing  when  he  would,  Italian  cities  on  the  fair  sea- 
coast  gave  him  amusement  under  their  aisles  of  orange-boughs, 
blending  fruit  and  blossom  till  golden  globes  and  snowy  flow- 
ers swayed  together  against  the  warm,  bright  brows  of  theii^ 
rich  Titian  women.  Becalmed  on  a  sunny,  silent  noon,  he 
could  lie  stretched  at  ease  under  the  deck-tent,  with  all  the 
perfumes  of  chestnut-woods,  and  myrtle-slopes,  and  citron- 
gardens  wafted  to  him  across  the  water,  white  ice-cold  wines 
sparkled  ready  to  his  hand,  and  light  laughter  or  melodious 
music  whiied  the  hours  away.  Landing  at  his  fancy,  he  would 
indolently  watch  the  little  gray  aziola  tly  among  the  ivy-cov- 
ered stones  of  the  great  Pan's  broken  altars,  or  the  fire-flies 
gleam  and  glisten  above  a  contadina's  hair  while  she  gathered 
in  her  harvest  of  the  yellow  gold  of  gourds,     bailing  at  night 


134  CHANDOS. 

through  silent,  star-lit  leagues  of  sea,  he  would  think  a  poet's 
thoughts  in  a  charmed  solitude,  while  the  phosphor-light 
glistened  under  silvery  vintage-moons,  and  the  ceaseless  swell 
of  waves  murmured  through  the  night.  Or,  when  lighter  fan- 
cies took  him,  under  the  shade  of  leaning  walnut-trees  and 
red  rocks  crowned  with  Greek  or  lioman  ruins,  where,  the 
vessel  moored  in  some  nestling  hay,  he  wound  the  starry 
cyclamen  in  women's  silken  hair,  and  listened  to  the'fr  liquid 
voices  laughing  out  soft  Anacreonic  songs  over  grape-clusters 
that  might  have  brought  back  upon  the  soil  the  gay,  elastic 
feet  of  banished  Dionysus.  He  was  not  sated,  he  was  not 
wearied;  he  was  what  thousands  pass  from  their  cradles  to 
their  graves  without  truly  being  for  an  hour:  he  was  happy. 
Oh,  golden  science!  too  little  thought  of,  too  quickly  abjured 
by  men.  That  glorious  power  of  enjoyment,  w'e  trample  it 
under-foot  as  we  press  through  the  world,  as  the  herds  seeking 
herbage  trample  the  violets  unheeded. 

The  summer  months  passed  swift  with  Chandos;  by  leisure- 
ly loitering,  the  yacht  at  length  wound  her  pleasant  way  down 
to  the  Bosphorus,  and  dropped  anchor  there  opposite  his  sum- 
mer-palace above  JStamboul — a  fairy-place,  with  its  minarets 
rising  above  a  wilderness  of  cactus  and  pomegranate,  of  roses 
and  myrtle,  with  the  boughs  of  lemon-  and  orsnge-  and  fig- 
trees  topping  the  marble  garden-walls,  and  the  showers  of 
lofty  fountains  flung  cool  and  fresh  under  the  deep  shadows  of 
cedar  and  cypress.  Here,  with  a  French  troop  of  actors  for 
the  bijou  theater  he  had  some  years  before  annexed  to  the  pal- 
ace— with  a  score  or  so  of  friends  from  Florence,  Rome,  and 
Naples,  brilliant,  indolent  Italians,  the  very  people  for  the 
place — with  sport,  when  he  cared  for  it,  in  the  wild  deer  and 
other  large  game  of  the  interior — with  as  complete  a  solitude 
when  he  wished,  and  as  utter  an  absence  of  every  memory  of 
the  world  beyond,  as  though  he  were  a  llaGz  or  Firdousi 
amidst  the  Eastern  roses  of  a  virgin  earth — here  the  autumn 
months  passed  by,  and  all  the  indolent  repose  and  vivid  color 
he  loved  blended  in  his  life  were  mingled  to  a  marvel. 

The  very  inconsistencies  of  his  character  made  the  charm  of 
his  existence;  through  them,  turn  by  turn,  he  enjo_yed  the 
pleasures  of  all  men,  of  all  minds,  and  of  all  temperaments. 
He  who  walks  straight  along  the  beaten  road,  turning  neither 
to  the  right  nor  left,  nor  loitering  by  the  way,  will  reach  soon- 
est his  destination;  but  he  enjoys  the  beauty  of  the  earth  the 
best  who,  having  no  fixed  goal,  no  pressing  end,  leaves  the 
highway  for  every  fair  nook  and  leafy  resting-place  that  allures 
him,  and  lingers  musing  here  and  hastens  laughing  there. 


CHANDOS.  13S 

Consistency  is  excellent,  and  may  be  very  noble;  out  the 
Greeks  did  not  err  when  they  called  the  wisest  man  the  man 
who  was  "  versatile.''  There  is  no  such  charm  as  "  many- 
sidedness.'" 

Chandos  loved  the  East;  he  had  lived  much  there,  either  at 
his  summer-palace,  or  deeper  in  the  heart  of  it  toward  Damas- 
cus; he  liked,  of  a  summer  morning,  to  float  down  the  soft, 
gray  Bosphorus  water  among  the  fragrant  water-weeds,  with 
tlie  silver  scales  and  prismatic  hues  of  the  gliding  fish  shining 
through  green  swatliesof  sea-grass  or  drooped  boughs  of  hang- 
ing gardens;  he  liked  in  the  stillness  of  starry  nights,  when 
the  first  call  to  prayer  echoed  up  from  the  valley  below  as  the 
faint  gleam  of  dawn  pierced  the  distance,  to  sit  alone  upon  the 
flat  palace-roof  and  let  his  lonely  thoughts  "  wander _  through 
eternity,"  as  thus  upon  the  house-top  under  the  Asian  stars, 
yonder  afar  in  Palestine,  the  great  poet-kings  had  thought, 
gazing  on  their  Syrian  skies,  and  on  the  hushed,  dark,  sleep- 
ing Syrian  world,  and  musing  on  that  vanitas  vanitatum 
which  has  pursued  all  lives  from  theirs  to  ours.  He  loved  the 
East,  and  he  stayed  there  till  the  first  hiss  of  the  winter  storms 
was  curling  the  Marmoran  waves  and  the  first  white  blinding 
mists  were  rushing  over  the  sea.  Then  he  left  that  summer 
j)aradise,  where  more  yet  than  anywhere  he  felt  "  how  good  is 
man's  life — the  mere  living,"  and  traveled  quickly  across  the 
Continent  to  Paris,  and  wintered  there  in  all  the  utmost 
brilliance  of  its  ceaseless  gayeties. 

He  was  one  of  the  idols  of  Paris;  its  fashionable  world  wel- 
comed him  as  one  of  its  highest  leaders,  its  artistic  world  as 
one  of  its  truest  friends,  its  literary  world  as  one  of  its  choicest 
chiefs,  its  feminine  world  as  one  of  its  proudest  conquests.  He 
was  never  more  at  home  than  in  Paris,  and  Paris,  from  the 
Tuileries  to  the  atelier,  always  delighted  to  honor  him,  always 
flocked  to  his  fetes  as  the  most  magnificent  since  those  of 
Soubise  and  Lauraguais,  quoted  his  bonmots,  followed  his 
fashions,  painted  him,  sculptured  him,  courted  him,  made 
him  its  sovereign,  and  found  the  wit  of  Rivarol,  the  beauty  of 
Eichelieu,  and  the  grace  of  Avaux,  revived  in  this  "  bel  An- 
glais aux  cheveux  dores.*' 

In  this  sparkling  whirlpool  of  his  Paris  winter  thought  had 
little  entrance,  remembrance  little  chance;  every  hour  had  its 
own  amusement,  every  moment  its  own  seduction;  ennui  could 
not  approach,  "  sad  satiety"  could  not  be  known.  Yet,  de- 
spite it  all,  now  and  then  upon  him,  in  the  glittering  follies  of 
a  court  masquerade  or  the  soft  shadows  of  some  jJ^trician 
coquette's  boudoir,  as  in  the  star-lit  silence  of  Turkish  nights 


136  CHANDOS. 

and  under  the  Asiatic  gloom  of  Lebanon  cedars,  a  certain  im- 
patient depression,  a  certain  vague  passionate  restlessness, 
came  on  him,  new  to  his  life,  and  bitter  there. 

It  came  thus,  because  for  the  first  time  he  could  not  forget 
at  his  will,  because  for  the  first  time  a  passion  he  repolsed 
pursued  him. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CLARE NCIEUX. 

The  rare  red  deer  herded  in  the  great  forests,  and  the  herons 
plumed  their  silver  wings  in  the  waters,  down  at  Clarencieux. 
Kestrels  wheeled  in  the  sunny  skies,  and  the  proud  gerfalcon 
came  there.  The  soft  owls  flitted  among  the  broken  arches  of 
the  ruined  Lady's  Chapel;  and  teal  and  mallard  crowded  in 
the  deep  brown  pools  that  lay  so  still  and  cool  beneath  the 
roofing  of  the  leaves.  It  was  a  paradise  for  all  living  things  of 
river,  earth,  and  air;  and  it  was  beautiful  enough  for  an  Eden 
where  it  sloped  down  to  the  seas  on  the  southwest  coast,  in  a 
climate  so  tempered  that  the  tall  fuchsia-hedges  grew  wild  as 
honeysuckle  and  the  myrtles  blossomed  as  though  it  were 
Sorrento.  Covering  leagues  of  country,  stretching  over  miles 
of  tawny  beach,  of  red-ribbed  rock,  of  glorious  deer-forest,  and 
of  heath  all  golden  with  the  gorse,  Clarencieux  was  the  great 
possession  of  a  great  house;  and  its  castle  bore  the  marks  of 
Cromwell's  petronels,  gained  when  the  Cavalier-lord  of  the 
Stuart  times,  Evelyn  Chaudos,  Marquis  of  Clarencieux,  had 
held  it  after  Marston  Moor  till  the  Ironsides  swore  in  their 
teeth  that  Satan  fought  there  in  the  guise  of  that  "  Chandos 
with  the  golden  hair  " — the  "  Beautiful  Belial,"  as  they  called 
him,  when,  with  his  long  light  locks  floating,  and  his  velvet 
,and  lace  as  gay  as  for  a  court-ball,  he  charged  out  on  them  in 
such  fiery  fashion  that  he,  with  his  troop  of  eighty  (all  that 
fii'e  and  sword  had  left  him),  drove  six  hundred  steel-clad  be- 
siegers pell-mell,  like  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  down  through 
his  mighty  woods  and  headlong  to  the  sea.  Kaised  in  th? 
days  when  the  mediajval  nobles  were 

"  Building  royallie 
Their  mansions  curiouslie 
With  turrets  and  u-ith  towers, 
With  halls  and  with  bowres, 
Hanging  about  their  walles 
Clotiies  of  gold  and  palles, 
Arras  of  ricli  arraye. 
Fresh  as  flowers  of  Maye  " 


CHAKDOS.  137 

Clarencieux,  with  its  tall  antique  louver,  its  massive  battle- 
mented  towers,  its  fretted  pinnacles,  its  superb  range  of  Gothic 
windows,  its  foliated  tracery,  so  marvelously  delicate  on  such 
massive  stone-work,  stood  in  all  magnificence  still,  the  mas- 
ter-work of  centuries. 

Between  it  and  the  great  marble  pile  adjoining,  of  the  newlj 
made  Earl  of  Clydesmore,  stretched  a  wide  impassable  gulf  of 
difference  never  to  be  bridged.  Lilliesford  had  cost  more  than 
a  million  in  erection,  and  Europe  had  been  ransacked  to  adorq 
it;  but  the  difference  betwixt  the  two  was  as  intense  as  that 
betwixt  the  bronze  Perseus  of  Benvenuto  and  the  ormolu 
statuette  of  a  Pall  Mall  goldsmith;  between  rich  old  Bhenish 
glowing  in  an  antique  Venetian  goblet  and  new  Cliquot  hissing 
in  a  mousseline  glass;  between  paint  and  pearls  and  silken 
skirts  gathered  with  gracious  grace  about  a  nobly  born  court- 
beauty  and  tinsel  flung  with  heavy  hand  and  tawdry  taste 
around  a  stage-queen  uneasy  in  her  robes  and  in  her  crown. 

Lilliesford  was  very  gorgeous;  but  Clarencieux  alone  was 
grand. 

The  setting  sun  was  reddening  all  the  antique  painted  jjanes 
of  its  innumerable  lancet- windows;  the  deer  were  leaving  their 
couches  in  the  ferns  to  begin  their  nightly  wanderings;  the  last 
light  was  shed  on  the  bold  curve  of  the  coast-rocks  and  the  sea 
that  stretched  beyond;  beneath  the  trees  in  the  dense  forest 
night  was  already  come,  as  a  carriage  swept  through  the  mileg 
of  avenue  and  Chandos  came  back  from  the  East  to  his  home. 
Though,  in  the  wayward  love  of  change  which  would  make  us 
weary  to  wander  from  eternal  bliss  itself  if  we  enjoyed  it  with 
our  present  natures,  he  lived  much  abroad,  now  here  and  now 
there,  he  loved  Clarencieux  with  a  great  and  enduring  love — a 
love  that  might  have  almost  been  termed  passionate,  so  con- 
stant was  it,  and  so  bound  up  with  every  gray  stone  and  hoary 
tree.  With  him,  though  hatred  of  pain  made  him  sometimes 
seem  heartless,  and  love  of  pleasure  and  carelessness  of  tem- 
per made  him  habitually  nonchalant,  the  feelings  were  still  ' 
strong,  and  were  not  sacrificed  either  to  the  intellect  or  the 
senses.  He  could  feel,  as  he  could  enjoy,  vividly;  and  the 
most  vivid  sentiment  in  his  heart  was  the  attachment  to  his 
birthplace,  to  his  great  hereditary  possessions,  not  for  their 
worth,  their  splendor,  or  their  envied  superiority,  but  from  a 
fond  and  almost  filial  tenderness  for  all  the  venerable  beauty 
of  the  noble  place — for  the  sound  of  its  sea,  for  the  width  of 
its  woodland,  for  the  smile  of  its  sunlight,  for  the  memories  of 
its  past. 

He  leaned  forward  as  the  carriage  drove  swiftly  through  th« 


138  CHAN^DOS. 

great  vales  of  oak  and  beech  and  elm,  and  looked  at  it  in  the 
glow  of  the  cloudless  spring-time  sunset.  Before  him,  in  the 
distance,  rose  the  front  of  the  royal  pile,  all  golden  where  the 
sun-rays  glistened  and  lit  its  glass  to  flame,  all  dark  where  the 
ivy  climbed  to  the  height  of  tiie  battlemented  towers,  and  the 
rolling  woods  of  the  inland  forests  stretched  upward  on  the 
hill-sides  beyond,  an  endless  stretch  of  dewy  April  leaf.  "  11 
is  almost  ungrateful  ever  to  leave  it,^'  he  thought.  "  There 
is  nothing  nobler  abroad.  I  will  live  here  more  for  the  fut- 
ure." And  a  vague,  irrepressible  melancholy,  wholly  unlike 
his  temperament,  stole  on  him,  despite  himself,  as  he  looked 
at  the  home  of  his  race — fair  as  it  was  in  the  sunset  warmth, 
sure  as  it  was  in  his  possession.  The  thought  crossed  him  how, 
ere  long,  at  most,  he  must  look  uj)on  its  loveliness  no  more, 
but  lie  among  the  dead  leaders  of  his  name,  there  yonder  to 
the  westward,  where  the  silent  graves  told  the  vain  story  of 
their  lifeless  glories. 

It  was  well-nigh  the  first  time  that  the  "  memento  mori  " 
had  ever  crossed  his  gay  unruffled  years;  nor  did  it  linger  with 
him  long. 

Ten  minutes  more,  and  he  was  within  the  immense  circular 
and  vaulted  hall  of  Clarencieux,  in  its  dim  splendor  of  purple 
and  gold,  of  Renaissance  hues  and  Renaissance  carvings,  with 
the  gleam  of  armor  and  the  flash  of  Damascus  blades  from  the 
walls,  and  with  the  flood  of  light  pouring  down  the  double 
flight  of  stairs  that  swept  upward  on  either  side  of  the  far  end. 
There  was  not  such  another  hall  as  that  of  Clarencieux  in  the 
kingdom  of  England.  At  the  time  of  the  siege,  Evelyn  Chan- 
dos  had  marshaled  and  marched  six  hundred  royalists  at  ease 
in  it  under  the  gi'eat  banner  that  still  hung  there,  the  azure  of 
the  Chandos's  colors,  with  their  arms  and  their  lost  coronet, 
and  their  motto  "  Tout  est  perdu,  fors  Fhonneur  "  broidered 
on  its  folds.  His  descendant  now,  as  he  entered  it  and  came 
into  the  scarlet  glow  of  the  vast  oak-wood  fire  which  burned 
there  almost  all  the  year,  looked  round  it  with  the  afl'ectionate 
remembrance  of  the  man  who  comes  back  to  the  place  of  his 
brightest  childish  memories.  "  I  will  not  leave  it  so  long 
again,''  he  thought,  once  more,  as  he  passed  through  the  line 
of  bowing-servants. 

His  households  were  always  attached  to  him  with  a  warmer 
feeling  than  the  mere  tie  of  self-interest.  Moreover,  there 
were  men  and  women  here  in  the  Clarenrjeux  establishment 
whose  fathers  had  lived  under  a  Chandos  generation  after  gen- 
eration, from  the  days  of  Flodden  Field  and  Tewkesbury. 
The  service  they  rendered  him  was  siven  with  a  loving  loyalty. 


CHANDOS.  139 

with  the  old  feudal  allegiance;  and  even  the  fashionable  French 
and  Itah'an  domestics  who  had  left  jialaces  to  come  to  him, 
such  as  Dobosc  himself,  Alexis,  his  head  valet,  Morivaux,  the 
groom  of  the  chambers,  and  others,  felt  a  certain  pride  in  and 
personal  liking  for  him.  Chandos  had  been  born  with  that 
nameless  gift  which  some  natures  have,  of  insensibly  and  with- 
out effort  attracting  personal  attachment.  Dogs  and  birds 
and  horses  and  human  things  ahke  felt  regard  for  him  and 
gentleness  to  him  at  the  first  sound  of  his  voice.  His  tem- 
perament was  one  that  kills  hatred  as  the  sun  melts  snow. 
There  was  but  one  hatred  borne  to  him,  hard  and  unbending 
as  steel,  which  it  could  not  soften,  any  more  than  the  sun  can 
dissolve  marble. 

Out  of  a  doorway  on  the  left,  in  the  warmth  and  the  light, 
and  down  the  staircase,  as  he  heard  his  host  and  patron's 
arrival,  came  Trevenna,  mirthful  and  full  of  bonhomie  as  the 
brightness  of  the  leaping  fire  whose  ruddy  gleams  shone  on  his 
handsome  white  teeth  and  his  pleasant  smile  of  welcome. 

"  As  your  factor,  steward,  head  butler,  head  secretary,  head 
trainer,  minister  of  the  finance,  and  master  of  the  horse,  let 
me  welcome  you  home,  monseigneur,"  he  cried,  as  he  took  the 
hand  Chandos  held  out  to  him.  "  London's  in  desperation  at 
your  absence.  What  a  delicious  winter  jou've  had  in  Paris! 
Never  got  a  bit  tanned  in  the  East,  either.  How  do  you  keep 
your  skin  so  fair?" 

"  By  no  cosmetic  but  cold  water,"  laughed  Chandos. 
"  Charmed  to  see  you,  my  dear  Trevenna.  No  one  makes  me 
laugh  so  well  even  in  Paris,  except  perhaps  my  exquisite 
Eachel.     Why  didn't  you  join  me  there?" 

"  Too  busy,"  rejoined  the  other,  shaking  his  head.  He 
had  had  delightful  quarters  at  Clarencieux  through  the  win- 
ter, running  up  to  town  most  v/eeks  at  his  inclination,  and 
asking  men  down  for  the  pheasants,  the  coursing,  and  the 
deer-drives,  till  he  was  quite  a  popular  and  courted  personage. 

"  What  a  Burleigh  shake  of  the  head!  I  should  like  to  be 
told  what  your  business  is.  Choosing  cigars  and  gathering 
gossip?"  laughed  Chandos.  "  Well,  you  know  you  would 
have  been  welcome,  had  you  come.  I  didn't  want  you  in  the 
East,  because  you  see,  my  dear  fellow,  you  are  not  precisely 
poetic,  and  I  like  things  to  harmonize;  but  Paris  was  scarcely 
itself  without  you.  I  thought  of  you  every  time  I  had  yoiiv 
favorite  ortolans  a  la  Princesse  MaiJiilde  at  the  Maison  Doree." 

"  Ah,  the  little  angels!"  said  Trevenna,  lusciously  recalling 
their  spiced  and  succulent  beauties.  "  Dubosc,  even,  never 
gets  them  quite  right.     I'd  a  long  talk  with  him  about  it.     I 


140  CHANDOS. 

told  him  I  thouglit  they  wanted  a  shade  more  lemon,  and  just 
to  be  stewed  in  the  Chambertin  long  enough  to  get  the  aroma: 
but,  like  every  artist,  he's  as  obstinate  as  a  pig,  and  won't 
take  a  hint. " 

"  You  might  be  a  club-cook,  Trevenna,"  laughed  Chandos. 
*'  You  would  soon  make  a  fortune.     Any  one  here  yet?" 

"  Only  a  few  men— Greville,  Bantry,  Le  Vere;  just  a  few 
to  amuse  you.  I  have  taken  infinite  care  in  sending  the  in- 
vitations. There  are  good  talkers  and  good  listeners;  there 
are  two  or  three  who  hate  one  another — that  always  makes 
'em  sparkle  out  of  spite;  and  there  is  not  a  single  one  who 
talks  politics.  You  won't  be  bored  for  five  minutes.  They 
are  all  your  favorite  set.  Price  Paul  Corona,  the  Due  de 
Neuilly,  and  most  of  the  ladies,  come,  I  believe,  to-morrow." 

"  Ah!  Madame  de  la  Vivarol  comes  also.  She  invited  her- 
self, and  her  fo2irgons  are  already  crossing  the  Channel."  He 
said  it  with  a*  little  sigh.  He  would  rather  she  had  not  been 
coming:  chains,  however  silken  and  sweet,  were  unendurable 
to  Chandos. 

"  And  you  could  not  say  No,  of  course,  to  hi  belle.  Did 
you  ever  say  No,  Chandos?" 

"  I  think  not:  why  should  I?  Yes  is  so  much  easier,  and 
so  much  more  gracious.  No  floats  you  into  endless  tro'ible, 
but  Yes  pleases  everybody." 

"  Yes  is  a  deuced  compromising  little  word,  though,"  said 
Trevenna. 

"It  is  better  to  be  compromised  than  to  be  ungracious," 
said  Chandos,  with  a  lift  of  his  eyebrows.  "  I  will  go  and 
have  a  bath,  and  then  tell  them  to  bring  me  some  cofl'ee  up, 
will  you,  please?  I  shall  not  show  to-night;  they  will  serve 
my  dinner  in  the  little  Greuze  room.  I  have  a  charriiing  novel 
of  Eugene  de  Meisedore's  I  promised  him  to  read;  and  if  you 
can  leave  the  other  men  and  come  and  tell  me  the  news  of  the 
town,  I  shall  be  pleased  to  see  you." 

"All  right,"  said  Trevenna,  as  his  host  passed  up  one  of 
the  great  staircases  to  his  private  rooms,  a  suite  looking  over 
the  rose-gardens,  and  consisting  of  his  bedroom,  dressing-room, 
study,  atelier,  and  a  beautiful  little  oval  cabinet  chambe"^, 
called  the  Greuze  room  from  its  being  chiefly  hung  with 
female  portraits,  and  such  bewitching  pictures  as"  La  Cruche 
Cassee,"  by  that  artist,  where  Chandos  dined  by  himself  or 
with  two  or  three  of  his  choicest  guests,  when  he  was  not  in 
the  mood  for  the  society  of  the  fifty  or  sixty  people  who  gener- 
ally filled  Clarencieux  in  the  recesses  and  the  shoor'iig-seasons. 
AlJi  these  rooms  opened  one  within  anoflier;  and  a  dainty  din* 


CHANDOS.  141 

ner  from  Pubosc's  genius  in  the  soft,  deep  hues  of  the  Greuze 
chamber,  with  the  violet  curtains  drawn,  and  the  white  wax- 
ligbt  shining  on  the  fair  female  heads,  was  as  pleasant  an  even- 
ing as  could  be  needed. 

"  I  must  see  poor  Lulli;  there  is  no  welcome,  after  all,  so 
true  as  his  and  as  i3eau  Sire's,"  thought  Chandos,  after  his 
coffee  and  his  bath.  "  I  suppose  he  is  here;  of  course  he  is. 
I  wish  I  could  take  him  news  of  that  lost  Valeria.'^  And,  act- 
ing on  the  thought,  he  went  to  the  musician's  apartment. 
He  never  sent  for  Lulli.  The  crippled  infirmity  of  the  artist 
made  the  traversing  of  the  long  corridors  and  galleries  of 
Clarencieux  very  painful  and  tedious  to  him;  and  Chandos, 
who  never  put  himself  out  of  the  way  for  a  prince,  invariably 
remembered  the  calamity  of  the  Provencal.  The  chamber 
given  to  Lulli  was  much  like  that  provided  for  him  in  Park 
Lane,  containing  everything  that  could  assist  or  entertain  him 
in  his  art,  and,  at  the  further  end,  a  single  statue  in  Carrara 
marble — a  Cecilia,  by  Canova — which  gleamed  white  out  of 
the  unlighted  gloom  as  Chandos  entered  noiselessly,  unpreced- 
ed  by  any  servant. 

"Lulli,  where  are  you?"  At  the  first  sound  of  the  only 
voice  he  loved,  or  had  ever  cause  to  love,  the  musician,  where 
he  sat  bent  in  the  twilight,  lifted  his  head  with  a  low,  joyous 
cry,  and  came  forward  as  quickly  as  his  weak,  bent  limbs 
would  let  him — a  man  who  looked  as  though  he  had  wandered, 
by  some  strange  transplanting,  out  of  the  dim  cells  of  a  para- 
clete, or  the  hushed  antiquity  of  some  media3val  city  of  Italy, 
from  all  his  brethren  who  found  their  pale,  sad  lives  only 
solaced  by  some  great  art-gift,  and  dreamed  of  things  that 
they  had  never  known  in  the  monastic  silence  of  a  living 
grave. 

His  brown,  wistful  eyes,  so  deep,  so  wise,  so  dreamy,  so 
spaniel-like  in  their  faithful  loyalty,  grew  brilliant;  the  trans- 
formation changed  the  weary  listlessness  of  his  face,  that 
never  failed  to  come  there  at  sight  of  the  man  who  had  rescued 
him  and  to  whom  he  owed  all.  He  welcomed  him,  in  his  own 
liquid  Southern  Erench,  with  what  Chandos  had  rightly  ad- 
Judged  the  truest  welcome  of  any  in  his  world.  To  no  one, 
not  even  to  the  women  who  loved  him,  did  his  presence 
ever  bring  a  pleasure  and  a  gratitude  so  deep  and  so  sincere 
as  it  brought  to  this  poor  cripple. 

"  Ah,  Lulli,"  said  Chandos,  with  that  caressing  gentleness 
with  which  he  always  addressed  the  man  so  utterly  dependent 
on  him,  so  hopelessly  deprived  of  health  and  strength  and  all 
the  joys  of  living,  yet  so  compensated  by  nature  with  one 


142  CHAKDOS. 

grand  gift  alone,  **  I  wish  you  had  been  with  me  in  the  East. 
I  have  heard  no  music  from  all  the  singers  of  Europe  that  has 
power  to  charm  me  like  yours.  Do  you  think  the  voyage 
would  have  harmed  you?'' 

"  I  must  have  seen  strangers,  monseigneur,"  answered 
Lulli,  with  that  shrinking  dread  of  new  faces  and  new  voices, 
the  result  chiefly  of  his  infirm  health,  partly  of  the  languid, 
contemptuous  curiosity  and  aristocratic  impertinence  of  those 
v/ho  noticed  him,  at  such  rare  times  as  they  thought  of  him, 
as  "  the  mad  musician  Ghandos  keeps  to  lead  his  concerts.'" 

"  Well,  no  strangers  should  have  treated  you  otherwise  tiian 
with  courtesy  and  reverence  in  my  presence,'^  said  Chandos, 
kindly.  "  I  wish  you  could  shake  off  this  timidity,  this  great 
sensitiveness;  they  do  your  marvelous  talent  injustice  with  the 
world.'' 

Lulli  shook  his  head:  he  knew  that  even  the' shield  of  his 
friend's  power  could  not  ward  off  him  the  shafts  that  struck 
h^m  home,  the  barbed  arrows  of  contemptuous  wonder,  con- 
temptuous loatliing,  or,  worst  of  all,  contemptuous  pit3% 

"  I  would  do  all  in  the  world  to  please  i/ou,  monseigneur," 
he  answered,  sadly;  "  but  I  can  not  change  my  nature.  The 
little  aziola  loves  the  shade,  and  shrinks  from  noise  and  ghire 
and  all  the  ways  of  men;  I  am  like  it.  You  can  not  make  the 
aziola  a  bird  for  sunlight;  you  can  not  make  me  as  others 
are. 

Chandos  looked  down  on  him  with  an  almost  tender  com- 
passion. To  him,  whose  years  were  so  rich  in  every  pleasure 
and  evcjry  delight  that  men  can  enjoy,  the  loneliness  and  pain 
of  Lulli's  life,  divorced  from  all  the  living  woriu,  made  it  a 
marvel  profoundly  melanch  dy,  profoundly  formed  to  claim 
the  utmost  (:;entleness  and  sympathy. 

"  I  would  not  have  you  as  others  are,  Lulli,'*  he  said,  soft- 
ly. "  If  in  all  the  selfishness  and  pleasures  of  cur  world  tiiere 
were  not  some  here  and  there  to  give  their  lives  to  high 
thoughts  and  to  unselfish  things,  as  you  give  yours,  we  should 
soon,  I  fear,  forget  that  such  existed.  But  for  such  recluse 
devotion  to  an  art  as  yours,  the  classics  would  have  perished; 
without  the  cloister-penmen,  the  laws  of  science  would  never 
have  broken  the  bondage  of  tradition." 

Lulli  looked  up  eagerly,  then  his  head  drooped  again  with 
the  inexpressible  weariness  of  that  vain  longing  which  ''  toils 
to  reach  the  stars. " 

"  Ah,  what  is  the  best  that  I  reach— the  breath  of  the  wind 
which  passes,  and  sighs,  and  is  heard  no  more." 

The  words  were  so  utterlv  mournful  that  the  shadow  of 


CHAISTDOS.  143 

their  own  sadness  fell  on  Chandos  as  he  listened.     He  sighed 
half  restlessly. 

"Is  there  any  fame  that  becomes  more  than  that  with  a 
few  brief  years?     I  do  not  know  it." 

Lulli's  eyes  turned  unconsciously  to  the  music-roll  that  lay 
on  the  desk  beside  him,  the  score  of  passages  grand  and  tem- 
pestuous as  Beethoven's.  "  I  do  not  want  fame,  if  tliey  might 
live/'  he  murmured  low  to  himself,  too  low  to  reach  the  ear 
of  Chandos  as  he  stood  above  him,  who  stooped  nearer  and 
laid  his  hand  kindly  on  the  musician's  shoulder. 

"  Dear  LuUi,"  he  said,  hesitatingly,  "  I  tried  to  gain  n©ws 
for  you  of  your  Valeria  whilst  I  was  in  Paris.  I  had  inquiries 
made  in  Aries;  but  all  was  ineffectual." 

Lulli  lifted  his  eyes  with  that  deep,  dog-like  gratitude  which 
always  touched  Chandos  well-nigh  with  pain. 

"  You  never  forget  me,  monseigneur.  Take  no  more  heed 
of  her;  she  is  dead  to  me." 

"Hush!  that  is  too  harsh  for  your  gentle  creed,  Lulh," 
said  Chandos,  whilst  his  hand  still  lay  caressingly  on  the 
Provencal's  shoulder.  "  I  abhor  those  bitter,  brutal  Hebrew 
codes.     Wait  till  at  least  you  know  her  story.  ^' 

"  There  is  no  need  to  v/ait;  it  is  dishonor." 

Out  of  the  dreaming  softness  of  his  Southern  eyes  new  fire 
flashed,  and  on  the  frail  delicacy  of  his  face  a  sternness  set. 
Never  yet  was  there  a  recluse  who  had  tolerance;  and  the 
honor  of  his  genius-dowered  name  was  as  dear  to  the  beggared 
artist  as  to  the  haughtiest  royal  line. 

"  As  the  world's  prejudices  hold,"  said  Chandos.  "  There 
is  more  real  dishonor  in  the  woman  who  gives  herself  to  a  base 
marriage  for  its  gold,  than  in  the  one  who  gives  herself  to 
calumniation  for  a  generous  love.  And  it  may  be  that 
Valeria — " 

"  Monseigneur,  I  pray  you,  speak  of  her  no  more.  I  have, 
said  she  is  dead  to  me.  "  \ 

There  was  so  intense  a  suffering  in  the  words  that  Chandos 
forbore  to  press  the  wound  still  so  keenly  nerved,  still  so  fresh 
to  every  touch,  although  two  years  had  passed  by  since  the 
loss  of  the  young  Proven(,'al  girl  from  Aries. 

"Then  think  of  her  no  more,  Guido,"  he  said,  kindly. 
"  I  can  not  bear  that  you  should  have  anything  to  grieve  you. 
Life  is  too  short  to  spend  its  hours  in  sorrow.  And  now,  how 
is  it  with  the  '  Ariadne  in  Naxos  '?  It  must  have  progressed 
far,  while  I  have  been  away?" 

He  had  recalled  Lulli  to  a  theme  even  dearer  than  Valeria 


144  CHANDOS. 

had  ever  been.  The  "  Ariadne  '*  was  an  opera  on  whose  com* 
jjosition  he  was  lavishing  all  his  love,  his  time,  his  luxuriant 
fauc}^  and  his  singular  talents.  Chandos  himself  had  written 
for  it  the  Italian  libretto,  and  had  lent  all  his  knowledge  of 
music  toward  its  perfecting;  it  was  yet  scarcely  finished,  but  it 
was  to  be  produced  under  his  own  auspices  and  at  his  own  ex- 
pense. It  would  be  the  touch-stone  of  Lulli's  powers  and  suc- 
cess, the  fiat  lux  which  would  either  consign  him  amidsc  that 
circle  of  the  lost,  those  dwellers  in  the  Antenoraof  dead  hopes, 
who  had  it  in  them  to  be  great  and  failed,  or  would  place  him 
amidst  the  names  of  his  idolatry,  Gluck,  Handel,  Mendels- 
sohn, Eosini,  Mozart. 

They  lingered  over  it.  Chandos  heard  some  portions  new 
to  him,  and  read  the  score  of  others,  giving  it  thought  and 
care  and  interest  for  a  twofold  reason — for  its  own  beauty  as 
an  opera,  and  for  the  hopes  which  LuUi  centered  in  it;  then, 
leaving  the  musician  to  the  solitude  he  prized,  he  went  back 
to  his  Greuze  cabinet  for  dinner. 

After  that  little  chef-d'oeuvre  of  the  genius  of  Dubosc,  who, 
to  do  him  the  justice  he  deserved,  never  exerted  himself  more 
when  half  a  dozen  European  princes  had  the  menu  than  when 
he  prepared  a  succession  of  delicate  trifles  for  the  solitary  en- 
joyment of  his  master,  Chandos  stood  leaning  against  the 
mantel-piece,  glancing  through  his  Paris  friend's  novel.  The 
warmth  of  the  logs  on  the  silver  andirons  was  behind  him, 
the  violet  velvet  and  the  glow  of  the  painted  chamber  around, 
and  the  light  fell  full  on  the  amused  smile  on  his  lips,  the 
beauty  of  his  face,  and  the  easy,  indolent  grace  of  his  resting 
attitude,  as  Trevenna  drew  back  the  portiere  and  entered. 
He  looked  at  his  host  with  that  acrid  envy  which  never  was 
stilled  in  him,  the  petty,  evil  envy  of  a  woman,  for  every  ele- 
gance of  form,  for  every  magnificence  of  manhood,  unpossessed 
by  himself  and  inherited  by  the  man  he  watched.  Yet  he 
consoled  himself,  looking  on  that  pleasant  repose  in  the  pict- 
ure-cabinet, that  unconscious  half-smile  over  the  witticisms  of 
the  French  pages. 

"  Very  well!  very  well,  my  gra)id  seignenrV  thought  Tre- 
yenna:  "  smile  away  in  Clarencieux;  you  won't  smile  long.'' 

And  Trevenna,  after  playing  the  part  of  host  in  the  ban- 
queting-hall  at  dinner  to  the  eight  or  ten  men  already  staying 
in  the  house  for  the  Easter  recess,  went  forward  into  the  ruddy 
wood-fire  light  to  taste  a  little  Lafitte  and  eat  another  olive 
or  two  with  his  host,  and  amuse  him  with  all  the  mirth  and 
mischief  of  the  town  gathered  in  his  absence,  told  as  John 
Trevenna  could  only  tell  it,  till  its  wit  was  as  bright  as 


CHANDOS.  145 

Meisedore's  novel,  and   its  relish  as  piquant  as   the  golden 
liqueurs. 

"  What  a  good  fellow  he  is!"  thought  Chandos.  "  I  am 
half  afraid  he  would  be  too  clever  for  the  Commons;  a 
decorous  dullness  is  what  passes  best  there,  and  a  fellow  is 
almost  sooner  pardoned  for  being  a  bore  than  for  being  brill- 
iant. They  think  there  is  something  so  intensely  respectable 
about  mediocrity.  But  still  he  has  so  many  qualities  that 
might  get  his  cleverness  forgiven  him,  even  there.  He  is  a, 
marvelously  good  man  of  business,  a  financier,  I  will  warrant, 
such  as  has  not  sat  on  the  Treas'-ry  Board,  and  he  has  an 
acumen  that  can  not  be  overrated.  I  M'ill  certainly  get  him 
into  St.  StejDhen's;  once  in,  he  will  make  his  own  name.'' 

''Chandos,"  said  the  Duke  of  Crowndiamonds,  in  the 
stable-yard,  two  mornings  later,  when  his  grace,  with  the  rest 
of  Chandos's  London  set,  had  come  down  to  Clarencieux,  "  did 
you  hear  what  that  fellow  of  yours — your  factor,  your  pro- 
tege, what  is  it — has  been  doing  while  you  were  away?" 

"  I  have  no  25roteges,  my  dear  Crown,"  said  Chandos,  will- 
fully failing  to  apprehend  him.     "  I  abhor  the  word.'' 

"  Well,  you  have  the  thing,  at  any  rate.  You  know  whom 
f  mean — that  witty  rascal  Trevenna.  Do  you  know  what  he's 
been  about?" 

"  No.  Spending  his  time  to  some  purpose,  I  dare  say,  which 
may  be  more  than  can  be  said  of  us." 

The  young  duke  laughed. 

"  Doing  an  abominably  impudent  thing,  to  my  mind. 
Been  down  somewhere  by  Darshampton  (democratic  place, 
you  know),  talking  something  or  other  out-and-out  radical. 
Why,  it  was  all  in  the  papers!" 

"  Never  read  the  papers,"  said  Chandos,  with  a  little  shrug 
of  his  shoulders. 

"  Addressing  the  masses,  you  know,  as  they  call  it;  coming 
out  no  end  at  an  institute,  or  a  what  d'ye  call  'em.  Tell 
him,  Jimmy,"  said  Crowndiamonds,  wearily,  appealing  to 
a  certain  fashionable  hanger-on  of  his,  who  played  the  part  in 
society  of  the  duke's  mnemonique. 

"  Working-men's  place  at  Darshampton — all  working-men 
there,"  supplemented  Jimmy,  obediently.  "  Fellows  that  look 
awfully  smutty,  you  know,  and  throw  things  they  call  clogs  at 
you,  if  tiiey  cut  up  rough;  though  wliy  they  use  women's 
clogs,  /  don't  know.  Trevenna  been  down  there;  asked  to 
lecture;  did  lecture!  Talked  out-and-out  liberalism — ail-but 
Socialism,  by  Jovel    Town  wondered;  thought  it  deuced  odd; 


146  CHAXDOS. 

knew  you  couldn't  like  it;  coaldn'fc  think  what  vras  his  game.*' 
M'ith  which  Jinimv.  having  i^erformed  his  office  of  encyclo- 
pedia,, turned  to  the  more  congenial  one  of  examining  a  beau- 
tiful little  mare  of  the  Godolphin  strain,  which  liad  won  the 
Oaks  the  year  before.     Chandos  listened,  surprised. 

''  Trevenna  at  Darshampton I"  he  repeated,  musingly. 

"  Ah,  I  knew  you  couldn^t  be  aware  of  it,*'  resumed  Crown- 
diamonds.  "  Told  them  all  so;  knew  you'd  have  interfered, 
U.  you  had." 

Interfered!     How  so:''" 

Why,  forbidden  it,  you  know,  and  all  that,  of  course." 
TVhyr    I  have  no  more  right  to  forbid  Trevenna's  actions 
than  I  have  to  forbid  yours." 

"  Oh,  hang  it,  Ernest,  you  don't  mean  that.  The  fellow 
belongs  to  you — one  of  your  people,  quite:  can't  have  any  title 
to  go  dead  against  your  political  oj^inions. " 

'•  Xever  had  a  political  opinion,"  said  Chandos,  with  a 
shade  of  weariness  at  the  mere  idea;  "  wouldn't  keep  such  a 
thing  for  worlds.  There  is  nothing  more  annoying  to  your 
acquaintance,  or  more  destructive  to  vour  own  nervous  svs- 
tem." 

"  Then,  the  deuce,  ChandosI  you  don't  mean  that  you'd 
let  that  fellow  go  on  talking  radicalism  all  over  the  country 
without  checking  him,  or  calling  him  to  order?"  chorused  the 
duke,  M.  de  Xeuilly,  Prince  Paul,  and  the  others  in  the 
stables,  all  of  them  strict  monarchists,  conservatives,  and 
aristocrats. 

Chandos  laughed,  but  with  a  touch  of  impatience.  "  Yoi 
talk  as  if  Trevenna  were  my  slave,  instead  of  my  friend! 
Call  him  to  orderl  What  do  you  mean?  I  may  think  what  I 
like  of  his  actions;  but  I  have  no  shadow  of  right  to  interfere 
with  them." 

"  WhatI  not  if  you  saw  him  joining  a  party  that  threatened 
the  very  preservation  of  your  own  jjrojjerty,  the  very  existence 
of  your  own  class?" 

"  Still  less  then.  Self-interest  is  the  last  motive  that  could 
excuse  an  aggression  on  personal  liberty." 

"  Good  graciousi"  ejaculated  the  duke,  as  though  foresee- 
ing the  Deluge.  '"'  Then,  if  you  put  him  into  the  Commons, 
as  you  intend,  you  will  let  him  choose  his  own  party,  go  his 
own  ways,  run  as  dead  against  all  your  interests  and  all  your 
opinions,  just  as  he  pleases?" 

'•'  Certainly.  Do  you  suppose  I  only  sell  my  friendship  to 
secure  partisanship?" 

*'  God  knows  what  you  do  dol"  cried  Crowndiamonds,  hope- 


CHAKDOS.  147 

lansly.  *'  All  I  do  know  is  that,  I  should  as  soon  have  thought 
of  seeing  Clarencieux  turned  into  a  hospital  as  of  hearing  you 
defend  radicalism!" 

"  My  dear  Crown/' laughed  Chandos, ''I  am  not  defend 
ing  radicalism;  I  am  defending  the  right  of  personal  liberty. 
I  may  deeply  regret  the  way  Trevenna  takes  in  the  House; 
but  I  shall  certainly  have  no  business  to  control  him  there  be- 
cause superiorities  of  property  might  enable  me  to  do  so. 
You  say,  '  You  have  bought  him,  therefore  you  have  a  right 
to  coerce  him;'  I  say,  '  I  have  aided  him,  therefore  I  am 
bound  never  to  make  that  accident  a  shackle  to  him. '  The 
man  who  puts  chains  on  another's  limbs  is  only  one  shade 
worse  than  he  who  puts  fetters  on  another's  free  thoughts  and 
on  another's  free  conscience.  But,  for  mercy's  sake,  drop  the 
subject;  we  are  talking  like  moral  essayists,  and  growing 
polemical  and  dull  accordingly!" 

And  Ohandos  turned  to  give  some  Paris  bonbons  to  his 
favorite  Circassian  stallion,  who  was  rubbing  his  sleek  steel- 
gray  head  caressingly  against  his  hand  for  the  sweetmeats, 
leaving  Crowndiamonds  in  the  conviction  that  the  constitution 
was  coming  to  an  end,  and  the  Legitimist  due  and  the  Tuscan 
prince  strongly  of  Lady  Chesterton's  persuasion,  that  when  a 
man  was  also  a  j^oet  Clarencieux  might  be  his  inheritance,  but 
Colney  Hatch  would  be  his  destination. 

Clarencieux  was  filled  with  guests  on  the  carefully-chosen 
invitations  of  which  Trevenna  had  spoken.  He  had  thu  very 
social  tactics  that  enabled  him  unerringly  to  mark  out  har- 
monizing tints  and  effective  contrasts  so  as  to  make  a  charm- 
ing whole.  His  plan  v/as  bold  and  daring,  but  it  never  failed: 
he  always  asked  special  enemies  together,  that  they  might 
sparkle  the  more  for  being  ground  against  each  other's  faces, 
like  two  diamonds  on  a  lapidary's  revolving  wheel;  and  under 
his  directions  the  visitors  that  met  at  Chandos's  house  never 
were  wearied,  or  wearied  their  host,  for  a  single  hour.  Few 
houses  can  boast  so  much.  According  to  the  seasons,  they 
rode,  drove,  smoked,  played  baccarat  or  billiards,  had  drives 
of  deer  in  the  forest,  and  curees  by  torchlight,  French  vaude- 
villes and  Italian  operettas  in  the  private  theater,  spent  the 
day  each  after  his  own  fashion,  free  as  air,  met  at  dinner  to 
have  some  novel  amusement  every  evening,  and  were  the  envy 
and  marvel  of  the  county,  the  county  being  little  wanted  in, 
and  generally  shut  out  from,  the  exclusive  gatherings  of 
Clarencieux. 

Yet,  well  amused  as  his  guests  kept  him  in  the  Easter  recess, 
which  fell  very  late  in  sprinjr  that  year,  Chaudos  had  a  certaia 


148  CHANDOS. 

restlessness  he  could  not  conquer,  a  certain  dissatisfaction 
utterly  unlike  his  nature:  he  could  not  forget  the  Queen  o{ 
Lilies.  Never  before  had  a  love  touched  him  that  was  unwel" 
come  to  him,  never  one  that  he  had  attempted  to  resist;  love 
had  been  the  most  facile  of  all  hi?  pleasures,  the  most  poetic 
but  also  the  most  changeful  amusement  of  his  life.  For  the 
first  time  he  had  to  resist  its  passion,  and  the  very  effort 
riveted  its  influence.  He  had  always  forgotten  easily  and  at 
will;  now  he  could  not  so  well  command  forgetfulness. 

Novv  and  then  all  the  variety  of  entertainments  that  chased 
one  on  another  failed  to  interest  him,  all  the  brilliance  of  hia 
companions  to  suffice  for  him:  the  wit  and  beauty  of  the  great 
ladies  who  adorned  the  drawing-rooms  of  Cheveley  almost 
tired  him;  he  was  conscious  of  wanting  what  was  absent.  It 
was  a  phase  of  feeling  very  new  to  him,  nor  with  the  non- 
chalance and  contentment  of  his  temperament  and  the  gayety 
of  his  life  could  it  have  the  rule  over  him  always.  But  it  was 
there,  a  dissatisfied  passion,  from  which  there  was  no  chance 
of  wholly  escaping. 

Moreover,  recalling  the  soft  glance  of  £he  Lily  Queen,  he 
wondered,  with  a  touch  of  self-reproach,  if  she  had  really  loved 
him.  He  knew  many  who  had;  nor  was  his  conscience 
wholly  free  from  self-accusation  on  their  score  or  on  hers. 

The  Countess  de  la  Vivarol,  radiant  at  Clarencieux,  play- 
ing in  "  Figaro  "  to  his  "  Almaviva,"  riding  a  little  Spanish 
mare  that  would  have  thrown  any  other  woman,  always  en- 
chanting, whether  she  talked  of  Fa;*;nce-ware  or  European 
imbroglio,  lap-dogs  or  protocols,  fashions  or  mesmerisms, 
flattered  herself  that  her  rival  the  English  Lily  was  wholly  for- 
gotten and  deserted;  but  the  keen  little  politician  flattered 
herself  in  vain. 

^  Trevenna,  with  his  habitual  sagacity,  made  no  such  mis- 
j'>ake,  but  pronounced  unerringly,  in  his  own  rejections,  on  the 
cause  of  his  host^s  needing  so  much  more  care  to  rivet  his  at- 
tention and  so  much  more  novelty  to  amuse  him  than  usual. 
He  guessed  why  the  Princess  Vallera,  the  Marchesa  de 
Lavoltra,  the  Comtesse  Lucille  de  Meran,  and  other  fair 
queens  of  society,  reigning  through  this  recess  at  Clarencieux, 
failed  in  charming  or  winning  their  entertainer.  "  If  he  meet 
her  again,  shall  I  let  it  go  on?"  thought  that  astute  comp- 
troller. "  Yes;  may  as  well.  It  will  be  another  complica- 
tion, as  the  diplomatists  say.  Nothing  like  fine  scenic  arrange- 
ments for  a  tragedyl" 

So  the  Queen  of  Lilies  would  apparently  have  no  foe  in  John 


CHAKDOS.  149 

Travenna,  although  he  had  put  the  pin  through  the  butterflies 
under  the  cedars. 

"  Reading  some  unintelligible  score  of  your  ancestors, 
Lulli?"  asked  Chaudos,  as,  having  wandered  out  alone  one 
morning,  taking  the  freedom  himself  that  he  left  his  guests, 
he  came  upon  the  musician  lying  in  the  sun  beside  the  river 
.that  wound  through  the  deer-park.  The  woodlands  were  in 
their  first  fresh  leaf;  the  primroses,  violets,  anemones,  and 
hyacinths  made  the  moss  a  world  of  blossom;  nothing  was 
stirring  except  when  a  hare  darted  through  the  grasses,  or  a 
wild  pigeon  stooped  down  from  a  bough  to  drink  or  to  bathe 
its  pretty  rosy  feet  among  the  dew.  It  was  peaceful  and 
lovely  here  in  the  heart  of  the  vast  deer-forest,  with  a  gleam 
of  the  sea  in  the  dim  distance  at  the  end  of  a  long  avenue  of 
chestnut-trees.  "  How  crabbed  a  scroll!"  he  went  on,  throw- 
ing himself  down  a  moment  on  the  thyme  and  grass.  "The 
characters  must  baffle  even  you;  the  years  that  have  yellowed 
the  vellum  have  altered  the  fashion.     Whose  is  it?" 

'"  An  old  Elizabethan  musician^s,"  answered  Lull!,  as  he 
looked  up.  "  Yes;  the  years  take  all — our  youth,  our  work, 
our  life,  even  our  graves." 

Something  in  his  Proven9al  cadence  gave  a  rhythm  to  his 
simplest  speech;  the  words  fell  sadly  on  his  listener's  ear, 
though  on  the  sensuous  luxuriance  of  his  own  existence  no 
shadow  ever  rested,  no  skeleton  ever  crouched. 

"  Yes;  the  years  take  all,"  he  said,  with  a  certain  sadness 
on  him.  "  How  many  unperfected  resolves,  unachieved 
careers,  unaccomplished  ambitions,  immatured  discoveries, 
perish  under  the  rapidity  of  time,  as  unripe  fruits  fall  before 
their  season!  Bichat  died  at  thirty-one— if  he  had  lived,  his 
name  would  now  have  outshone  Aristotle's." 

"  We  live  too  little  time  to  do  anything  even  for  the  art  we 
give  our  life  to,"  murmured  Lulli,  with  his  deep-brown 
Southern  eyes  dreamily  wandering  down  the  green-and-goldeu 
vista  of  the  sun-lighted  avenue.  "  When  we  die,  our  work 
dies  with  us:  our  better  self  must  perish  witii  our  bodies;  the 
first  change  of  fashion  will  sweep  it  into  oblivion." 

"  Yet  something  may  last  of  it,"  suggested  Chandos,  while 
his  hand  wandered  among  the  blue  bells  of  the  curling 
hyacinths.  "  Because  few  save  scholars  read  the  '  Defensio 
Pcpuli  '  now,  the  work  it  did  for  free  thought  can  not  die. 
None  the  less  does  the  cathedral  enrich  Cologne  because  the 
name  of  the  man  who  begot  its  beauty  has  passed  unrecorded. 
None  the  less  is  the  world  aided  by  the  effort  of  every  tru© 


130  ^HAKDOS. 

and  daring  mind  because  the  thinker  himself  has  been  crushed 
down  in  tlie  rush  of  unthinking  crowds/' 

'' No,  if  it  could  live!*'  murmured  Lulli,  softly,  with  a 
musing  jDain  in  the  broken  words.  "  But  look!  the  scroll  was 
as  dear  to  its  writer  as  his  score  to  Beethoven — tlie  child  of 
his  love,  cradled  in  his  thoughts  night  and  day,  cherished  as 
never  mother  cherished  her  first-born,  beloved  as  wife  or  mis- 
tress, son  or  daughter,  never  were.  Perhaps  he  denied  him- 
self much  to  give  his  time  more  to  his  labor;  and  when  he 
died,  lonely  and  in  want,  because  he  had  pursued  that  for 
which  men  called  him  a  dreamer,  his  latest  thought  was  of  the 
work  which  never  could  speak  to  others  as  it  spoke  to  him, 
whicli  he  must  die  and  leave,  in  anguish  that  none  ever  felt  to 
sever  from  a  human  thing.  Yet  what  remains  of  his  love  and 
his  toil.''  It  is  gone,  as  a  laugh  or  a  sob  dies  off  the  ear,  leav- 
ing no  echo  behind.  His  name  signed  here  tells  nothing  to 
the  men  for  whom  he  labored,  adds  nothing  to  the  art  for 
which  he  lived.     As  it  is  with  him,  so  v/ill  it  be  with  me.  '* 

His  voice,  that  had  risen  in  sudden  and  untutored  eloquence, 
sunk  suddeidy  into  the  sadness  and  the  weariness  of  the  man 
whose  highest  joy  is  but  relief  from  pain;  and  in  it  was  a 
keener  pang  still— tlie  grief  of  one  who  strives  for  what  in- 
cessantly escapes  him. 

"  Wait,''  said  Chandos,  gently.  "Are  we  sure  that  noth- 
ing lives  of  the  music  you  mourn?  It  may  live  on  the  lips  of 
the  people,  in  those  Old-World  songs  whose  cause  we  can  not 
trace,  yet  which  come  sweet  and  fresh  transmitted  to  every 
generation.  How  often  we  hear  some  nameless  melody  echo 
down  a  country-side!  the  singers  can  not  tell  you  whence  it 
came;  they  only  know  their  mothers  sung  it  by  their  cradles, 
and  they  will  sing  it  by  their  children's.  But  in  the  past  the 
song  had  its  birth  in  genius." 

Guido  Lulli  bent  his  head. 
I     "True!  such  an  immortality  were  all-sufiQcient:  we  could 
well  afford  to  have  our  names  forgotten — " 

"  Our  names  will  be  infaUibly  forgotten  unless  we  attach 
them  to  a  great  sauce  or  to  a  great  battle;  nothing  the  world 
deifies  so  much  as  the  men  who  feed  it  and  the  men  who  kill 
it.  Paradox  in  appearance,  but  fact  in  reality!"  cried  a  sdarp, 
clear,  metallic  voice — the  voice  to  ring  over  a  noisy  assembly, 
but  in  no  way  the  voice  to  suit  a  forest  solitude — as  Trevenna 
dashed  through  the  brushwood  with  a  couple  of  terriers  bark- 
ing right  and  left  at  hiires  and  pigeons.  The  musician 
shrunk  back  instantly  and  irrepressibly,  as  a  sensitive  plani; 
or  a  dianthus  shrinks  at  a  touch.     "  Halloo,  mon  prince  I" 


CHANDOS.  151 

pursued  Trevenna,  cheerily.  "  You  are  a  disciple  of  the  dolce, 
and  no  mistake!  Easiest  lounging-chair  iii-doors  and  wild 
thyme  out;  luxurious  idleness  really  is  a  science  in  your  hands. 
If.  ever  you  do  die — which  I  think  highly  doubtful,  you  are 
such  a  pet  of  Fortune!— the  order  of  your  decease  will  surely 
be  to  '  die  of  a  rose  in  aromatic  pain.'  Nothing  harsher  could 
possibly  suit  you.'' 

"  You  antithesis  of  repose!"  cried  Chandos.  "  You  will 
scare  all  my  breeding-game,  frighten  all  my  song-birds,  and 
drive  me  to  a  new  retreat." 

Trevenna  laughed  as  he  dashed  himself  down  on  a  bed  of 
hyacinths  fit  for  Titania's  wedding-couch,  that  sent  out  their 
delicious  fragrance,  bowing  their  delicate  bells  under  his 
weight:  Trevenna  weighed  a  good  deal,  though  a  small  man. 
Chandos  glanced  at  them. 

"  Wanton  waste,  Trevenna!  You  are  the  genius  of  destruc- 
tion." 

"  "Well,  destruction's  very  pleasant— of  anybody  else's  prop- 
erty.    Everybody  thinks  so,  though  nobody  says  so." 

The  man  had  a  natural  caixlor  in  him,  with  all  his  artifice 
of  action.  He  hated  hypocrisy  with  an  oddly  genuine  hatred, 
seeing  that  he  was  as  cool  a  liar  as  ever  was  born.  It  seemed 
as  if,  like  Mme.  du  DefFand,  he  wished  to  render  virtue  by  his 
words  the  honor  he  robbed  her  of  by  his  actions;  for  he  talked 
truths  sharply,  and  as  often  hit  himself  with  them  as  other 
people. 

''  But  why  can  you  want  to  kill  all  those  poor  flowers  for 
nothing?"  asked  Chandos,  tossing  him  his  cigar-case. 

"  For  nothing!  Sac  a  papier  ! — is  it  for  nothing  when  I 
lie  at  my  ease?  To  be  comfortable  is  your  first  requisite  of 
life.  Caesar  killed  men  by  millions  to  lie  at  his  ease  on  pur- 
ples; why  mayn't  I  kill  flowers  by  millions  to  lie  at  mine  on 
hyacinths?     Flowers,  too!     A  lot  of  weeds." 

"  Oh,  Peter  Bell  the  Second!"  cried  Chandos,  shrugging  his' 
shoulders. 

"  '  A  primrose  on  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more.'  " 

quoted  Trevenna.  "  Now,  what  the  deuce  more  should  it  be? 
How  that  unhappy  fellow  has  been  abused  for  not  being  able 
to  see  a  thing  as  it  wasn't — always  the  thing  for  which  poets 
howl  at  sane  men!  "Why  are  he  and  I  required  to  rhapsodize 
over  hyacinths  and  2)i'i!nroses — nice  little  flowers,  one  blue, 
t'other  yellow,  with  a  2)le;isant  smell,  but  certainly  notiiing 
vemarkable.     What  is  this  miraculous  tongue  that  talks  to 


153  CHANDOS. 

you  artists  ia  a  scrubby  little  bit  of  moss  or  a  beggarly  bunch 
of  violets:'' 

"'  Grimm  asked  Diderot  the  same  question.  You  would  have 
wondered,  like  Grimm,  what  there  could  be  to  listen  to  from 
an  ear  of  wheat  and  a  little  corn-flower.'* 

''Certainly:  Grimm  was  very  like  me — a  regular  gossip," 
responded  Trevenua,  pulling  a  handful  of  hyacinths  and  toss- 
ing them  up  in  the  air.  "My  dear  weeds,  you  must  die  if  I 
choose.  Ah! — it's  fun  to  have  power  over  anything,  great  or 
small.  Fouquier-Tinville  enjoyed  cutting  off  necks  by  a 
nod  of  his  own;  I  understand  that;  you  don't  understand  it, 
monseigneur.  If  we'd  been  in  the  Terror,  you'd  have  gone  to 
the  guillotine  with  the  point  ruffles  over  your  hands,  and  a 
mot  on  your  lips,  and  a  superb  smile  of  disdainful  pity  for  the 
mob;  and  I  sliould  have  tossed  up  my  red  cap  and  spun 
round  in  the  '  ya  ira,'  and  cheered  the  Sansons,  and  gone  safe 
through  it  all.  But  good-bye;  I'm  going  to  your  outlying 
farms.  Did  you  know  I  was  a  first-rate  agriculturist?  Of 
course  you  don't;  what  do  you  know  about  any  Bucolics,  ex- 
cept the  Virgilian?"  With  which  Trevenna,  much  too  mer- 
curial to  sit  still  five  minutes,  went  on  his  way,  switching  the 
grasses  right  and  left,  and  with  his  two  little  terriers  barking 
in  furious  chorus. 

Lulli  looked  after  him;  Chandos  himself,  even,  was  glad  he 
was  gone.  He  enjoyed  the  merry  society  of  his  jiclus  Achates 
in  a  club  or  over  a  claret;  but  there  were  times 'when,  cordial 
as  was  his  good  will  to  him,  Trevenna  irritated  rather  his 
tastes  than  his  temper,  and  his  incessant  banter  grew  weari- 
some. 

"  You  trust  that  gentleman?"  asked  Lulli,  suddenly. 

"  Entirely,"  answered  Chandos,  surprised. 

"  I  would  not,"  said  the  Provenyal,  softly,  under  his  breathe 

"Indeed!    And  why?" 

Over  LuUi's  face  came  the  troubled,  bewildered  look  which 
made  those  who  noticed  him  cursorily  think  his  brain  was  un- 
settled. He  felt,  but  he  could  not  define.  To  a  mind  only 
used  to  desultory  dreamy  thoughts,  it  was  Impossible  to  trace 
out  its  workings  by  logic. 

*'  I  can  not  tell,"  he  said,  wearily:  *'  but  I  would  not  trust 
him.  The  eyes  are  bright  and  clear,  the  face  looks  honest, 
yet  there  is  craft  somewhere.  The  dogs  all  slink  from  him; 
and  the  birds,  that  come  to  us,  %  from  him.  He  is  your 
friend;  but  I  do  not  think  he  bears  you  any  love — " 

He  ceased,  looking  down,  still  with  that  bewildered  pain, 
lypon  the  clear  brown  river  rushing,  swelled  and  melodious, 


CHANDOS.  153 

at  his  feet.  Like  a  woman,  he  had  intuition,  but  no  power  of 
argument,  Chandos  looked  at  him,  astonished  more  at  tke 
words  than  he  had  been  at  the  sechided  dreamer's  distaste  to- 
ward the  busy  and  trenchant  man  of  the  world. 

"I  hope  you  are  wrong,  Lulli,"  he  said,  gently,  "i  do 
not  doubt  you  are.  You  and  that  geutlemau  can  have  little 
ill  common;  but  you  are  both  valued  friends  to  me.  What  is 
Uie  matter?" 

Lulli,  as  he  gazed  down  into  the  water,  had  started,  turned, 
and  looked  behind  him  into  the  great  depths  of  shadow, 
where  the  trees  grew  so  densely  that  even  at  noon  it  was  twi- 
light beneath  their  branches,  which  curled,  and  twined,  and 
grew  in  ponderous  growth,  almost  rather  like  a  Mexican  than 
an  English  forest.  Lulli's  face  suddenly  flushed,  his  large 
eyes  opened  wider,  his  lips  trembled;  he  strove  to  rise  rapidly, 
and  fell  back. 

"  I  heard  Valeria's  voice,"  he  said,  hushed  and  breathless- 
ly, while  his  glance  wandered  in  restless  longing  hither  and 
thither,  like  a  listening  deer's. 

"  Valeria's!"  echoed  Chandos,  in  amazement,  as  he  rose  to 
his  feet.     "  You  must  be  dreaming,  Lulli." 

The  Proven9al  shook  his  head,  and  pointed  eagerly  toward 
the  recesses  of  the  woods. 

"  I  heard  it  I     Look;  pray  look." 

Willing  to  humor  him,  yet  satisfied  that  it  could  be  but  a 
delusion  of  the  ear,  common  enough  with  such  minds  as 
Lulli's  when  one  dearly  loved  has  been  lost,  he  went  some 
little  way  into  the  deer-coverfcs,  glanced  right  and  left,  heard 
nothing  exce^jt  the  cooing  of  wood-pigeons,  the  note  of  a 
missel-thrush,  and  the  cry  of  a  laud-rail,  and  returned. 

"  It  must  have  been  imagination,  Guido,"  he  said,  sooth- 
ingly. "  Some  bird's  song,  perhaps,  sounded  like  a  human 
voice.     There  is  no  creature  near." 

"  I  heard  it,"  said  Lulli,  very  low  to  himself,  while  his  head 
drooped,  and  his  gaze  fell  again  with  the  old  weariness  upon 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  river.  He  would  never  have  contra- 
dicted a  thing  that  Chandos  had  said  if  he  had  died  through 
it;  but  the  superstitious  and  ignorant  beliefs  which  the  early 
training  of  a  childhood  spent  in  ultramontanist  countries, 
joined  to  the  deeply  imaginative  mind  of  a  visionary  whom  no 
intercourse  with  a  broader  world  than  his  own  thoughts  en- 
lightened or  controlled  had  imbued  him  with,  made  him  in  his 
own  heart  turn  rather  to  the  wild  and  baseless  fancy  that  the 
voice  he  believed  he  had  heard  was  the  supernatural  sign  of 
Valeria's  death — the  farewell  of  her  spirit  released  from  earth, 


154  CHAKDOS. 

Lulli  had  been  born  amidst  all  the  legendary  mysticism  and 
medifeval  traditions  of  an  almost  Spanish  Catholicism.  Tiie 
hues  of  it  had  colored  his  mind  too  deeply  ever  to  be  vvliolly 
altered.  It  made  his  grandeur  as  a  musician,  but  equally  it 
made  his  utter  weakness  as  a  man. 

"  Poor  fellow!  he  can  not  forget  this  Valeria,"  thought 
Chandos,  who  was  for  the  first  time  feeling  himself  the  doubt 
whether  forgetfuhiess  could  be  commanded,  as  he  went  to 
where  he  had  thrown  his  horse's  bridle  across  a  bough  (he  had 
brought  no  groom  with  him)  for  a  canter  through  his  own 
forests,  and  rode  down  the  length  of  the  avenue  at  a  dashing 
half-speed  which  soon  broke  into  an  almost  racing  gallop. 
An  hour  afterward,  sweeping  round  again  by  nearly  the  same 
portion  of  the  v/oods,  only  through  so  dense  a  covert  that  he 
had  to  go  at  much  slower  rate  through  the  low  boughs,  all 
green  with  their  young  leaves,  and  all  melodious  with  the 
s])ring-songs  of  innumerable  nest-birds,  he  overtook  a  solitary 
pedestrian,  considerably  to  his  wonder  and  annoyance. 

Clarencieux  was  strictly  preserved.  It  would  have  been 
made  a  show-place  during  their  master's  absence  only  at  risk 
of  instant  dismissal  of  any  servants  concerned  in  showing  it; 
and  no  stranger's  feet  ever  trod  the  mosses  and  the  ferns  of 
the  mighty  deer-forest  sloping  to  the  sea.  Chandos  checked 
his  stallion  as  he  passed  this  interloper,  and,  to  his  surprise, 
recognized  his  near  neighbor,  the  Earl  of  Clydesmore,  a  man 
with  whom  he  had  but  the  most  distant  acquaintaiice,  having 
invariably  declined  the  efforts  the  earl  had  made  toward  any 
sort  of  intimacy.  Chandos  never  knew  bores,  not  if  they  were 
princes,  and  considered  his  neighbor  a  bore  of  the  very  worst 
descrijition:  Lord  Clydesmore  was  one  of  that  happily- 
designated  class,  the  "  worldly-holies.'* 

The  earl,  a  tall,  fair  man  of  a  rather  handsome  presence, 
;not  more  than  five-and-thirty  years  of  age,  apologized  for  his 
I  intrusion  with  considerable  grace  and  a  little  too  much  effu- 
sion. He  had  lines  and  a  salmon-rod  in  his  hand,  and  ex- 
plained himself  as  passionately  fond  of  all  river  science.  A 
grilse  he  had  hooked  had  dragged  him  after  it  down  the  length 
of  the  waterfall  two  miles,  till  he  had  wandered  off'  his  own 
lands  into  the  outer  borders  of  Clarencieux.  He  had  now  fair- 
ly lost  his  road,  without  being  consoled  by  the  grilse,  which 
had  broken  away  with  the  hook  in  its  jaws;  and  he  was  look- 
ing out  for  a  keeper  to  direct  him.  He  detailed  his  advent- 
ui-es  at  much  too  great  a  length  for  Chandos,  who,  infinitely 
^vearied,  was  still  obliged  to  invite  him  to  the  house  f Jr 
Juncheon,  although  he  had  Ions:  abstained  from  all  intercourse 


CHAKD03.  155 

with  this  peer  of  the  new  creation.  Chandos  was  inexorably 
exclusive  where  intellect  did  not  exist  to  induce  him  to  break 
his  law.  The  temper  of  his  house  had  always  been  so,  with 
that  pride  of  the  great  noble,  "  Je  ne  suis  ny  roy,  ny  prince; 
je  suis  le  Sire  de  Courcy;''  though,  where  intellect  was,  he 
would  willingly  be  as  democratic  as  even  Darshampton  could 
have  asked. 

There  was  another  cause,  moreover,  for  little  cordiahty  be- 
tween them.  Before  the  departure  of  Chandos  for  Constanti- 
nople, Lord  Clydesmore  had,  as  it  was  well  known,  offered  his 
hand  to  the  fair  Queen  of  Lilies  and  been  refused;  and  he  had 
attributed  very  justly  the  discarding  of  his  own  suit  to  the 
presence  of  his  brilliant  and  careless  rival  who  would  not  even 
accept  the  glorious  gift  notoriously  willing  to  be  given  him. 

The  earl  bore  him,  indeed,  more  grudges  than  this.  Though 
he  owned  Lilliesford,  so  near  on  the  same  sea-board,  he  had 
never  obtained  entrance  to  the  doors  of  Olarencieux;  all  his 
extreme  wealth  and  all  his  new-gained  honors  could  not  avail 
to  get  him  recognition  from  the  master  or  from  the  guests 
there.  But  he  had  long  vainly  pined  to  dash  his  holy  water 
with  the  essence  of  fashion's  perfume;  and  he  suppressed  his 
grudges  and  his  conscientious  scruples  against  what  he  had 
been  wont  to  term  "  a  house  of  sin,''  to  accept  with  satisfac- 
tion the  distantly-made  offer  of  luncheon  from  his  rival,  con- 
gratulating himself  that  those  fair  titled  beauties  whom  he 
had  often  called  "  coroneted  courtesans "  and  "  modern 
Messalinas  "  would  now  most  likely  send  him  "At  home" 
cards,  and  that  those  who  he  decreed  would  be  damned  in 
eternity  could  not  well  damn  him  now  while  in  mortal  May- 
fair.  "  That  miserable  roturier !"  thought  his  Grace  of  Cas- 
tlemaine,  then  on  a  visit  to  his  grandson,  drinking  his  wine 
angrily  at  the  table,  across  which  he  saw  Clydesmore  bowing 
antl  addressing  him  blandly.  The  earl  was  thinking  that  after 
this  meeting  the  haughty  old  man  must  give  him  "  Good-day  " 
in  the  drawing-room  at  White's.  In  a  few  years  at  furthest, 
he  knew,  the  duke  must  be  roasting  in  the  fires  of  Tophet;  but 
meantime  it  was  just  as  well  to  get  rank  from  him  by  a  nod 
before  the  fire  in  Boodle's. 

Some  dozen  people  besides  the  duke  had  dropped  in  to- 
gether for  luncheon  as  Chandos  took  his  titled  trespasser  into 
the  dining-hall,  among  them  Trevenna,  who  came  in  with 
a  keen  appetite  after  his  morning  among  the  outlying  farms, 
where  he  had  astonished  the  agricultural  mind  with  his  science 
in  top-dreseing,  irrigation,  cross-breeds,  and  mangel.  But  he 
stopped  a  moment  over  his  fricassee  to  fire  an  unpleasant 


156  CHANDOS. 

query  straight  at  the  earl.  He  liked  fricasees»  but  he  liked 
efcill  better  setting  any  one  at  a  discomfiture. 

*'  Ah,  my  lord!  that  little  box  of  Forest  Hill  is  close  to  you, 
isn't  it?  Is  it  true  that  the  Chestertous  are  just  dovrn  agaiii 
there  with  that  invulnerable  beauty,  the  Queen  of  Lilies?" 

Clydesmore  colored  irritably,  and  darted  a  quick  glance  at 
his  host,  as  he  answered,  not  very  lucidl}",  in  the  affirmative. 
He  was  aware  that  every  one  there  knew  that  he  had  been  re- 
jected, and  rejected  for  his  thankless  rival. 

"  Thought  so,"  went  on  Trevenna,  remorselessly.  *'  Clever 
little  fellow.  Chess,  to  take  that  box.  Caj^ital  coverts;  first- 
rate  game.  More  my  lady's  doing,  though:  she's  lord  and 
lady  both.'* 

As  there  was  nothing  to  be  shot  now,  except  rabbits,  the 
double  meaning  of  his  words  was  obvious.  Chandos,  at  whom 
not  only  Clydesmore  but  his  grandfather  and  La  Vivarol  as 
well  had  both  glanced,  gently  glided  in  and  changed  the  sub- 
ject. Kot  even  his  rival  could  tell  that  it  had  interested 
him. 

But  that  night,  when  he  went  to  his  own  chambers  from  the 
smoking-room,  the  laughter  of  some  of  the  men  echoing  pleas- 
antly from  the  distant  corridors  as  they  bade  each  other  good- 
night, he  opened  first  the  door  of  his  atelier  and  went  up  to  a 
Spanish  picture  hanging  near  his  easel.  It  was  a  picture, 
without  any  master's  name,  that  he  had  picked  up  in  one  of 
the  dark,  winding  streets  of  Granada,  pleased  with  its  Murillo 
coloring,  and  yet  more  with  its  subject — a  young  Granadine 
leaning  from  a  moonlit  balcony  in  the  coquettish  duty  ^^  pelar 
la  pava."  There  was  more  of  proud,  melancholy  grace  than 
of  coquetry  in  the  noble,  moonlit  face;  and  it  was  strangely 
like  the  Queen  of  Lilies— so  like,  that  one  of  her  first  charms 
for  him  had  been  her  resemblance  to  his  favorite  Spanish  por- 
trait.    He  stood  and  looked  at  it  some  moments, 

"  I  must  see  her  to-morrow  again,  come  what  will  of  it," 
he  thought. 

As  he  moved  away,  with  all  tlie  unrest  of  an  eager  and  re- 
pressed passion  come  tenfold  on  him  with  the  knowledge  of  her 
presence  near,  his  lamp  shed  its  light  full  on  a  scarcely-finished 
painting  of  his  own  upon  a  rest;  it  was  a  soft  and  deep-hued 
oil-picture  of  the  Amphitheater  of  Aries,  with  a  cloudless  sky 
above,  and  the  luster  of  a  Provence  sunset  pouring  from  the 
west.  It  had  been  sketched  in  Aries  itself,  two  years  before. 
As  he  glanced  at  it,  a  sudden  recollection  crossed  him,  a  sud- 
den thought  sent  a  flush  over  his  forehead,  a  pang  of  anxiety 
to  his  heart;  he  paused  before  the  painting.     "  bh^e  can  not 


CHANDOS.  157 

he  Lulli's  Valeria?*'  he  said,  half  aloud.  ''  She  never  spoke 
of  him;  she  never  seemed  to  have  had  a  living  thing  to  care 
for  except  her  own  vain  beauty.  And  j'et  she  was  an  Arle- 
sienne;  she  was  of  the  age  Valeria  would  be;  she  was  very 
poor.*' 

His  memory  traveled  back  to  the  past,  far  away,  as  it 
seemed,  even  by  two  years  space,  and  covered  with  a  thou- 
sand other  memories  in  his  swift  and  brightly  colored  life — trav- 
eled back  to  a  time  when  he  had  loitered,  in  the  vintnge-montii, 
in  tlie  old  Roman  city,  passing  on  his  way  with  the  swallows  to 
spend  an  Italian  winter. 

"  I  hope  to  Heaven  not!"  he  thought,  with  a  keener  pang 
than  he  had  ever  before  known.  "  Even  a  thing  as  worthless 
as  she  should  have  been  sacred  to  me  if  that  great  heart  of 
Lulli's  centered  in  her.  They  have  never  met;  but  it  would 
be  cruel  work,  for  him  and  for  me,  to  ask  him.  She  w^as 
shameless  before  I  saw  her.  It  would  be  but  worse  anguish 
for  him  to  find  his  lost  Valeria  in  such  as  Flora  de  TOrme. " 

And  he  went  slowly  out,  leaving  the  darkness  to  fall  over 
the  Spanish  portrait  and  the  glow  of  the  Provence  sun. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   POEM   AMONG   THE   VIOLETS. 

The  portrait-gallery  at  Clarencieux  was  one  of  the  noblest 
features  of  the  whole  castle.  With  its  ceiling  of  cedar,  its  gold 
panels,  its  lofty  arched  v/indows,  twenty  in  number,  and  its 
landscape  beyond  them  of  the  home-park  and  hanging  woods 
that  stretched  away  to  the  sea,  it  would  have  been  remarkable 
•without  its  Vandykes,  Holbeins,  Lelys,  Mignards,  and  Law- 
rences; with  them,  it  was  the  idolatry  of  the  virtuosi.  Up  and 
down  it  Trevenna,  who  certainly  was  no  virtuoso,  and  could 
barely  have  told  a  Gainsborough  from  a  Spagnaletto,  saun- 
tered the  next  morning,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  hum- 
ming a  Chaumiere  dance-tune,  and  reading  his  letters.  He 
was  a  very  prudent  fellow,  and  did  not  trust  the  post  wilh 
much  of  his  business;  what  was  important  he  generally  did 
viva  voce,  and  the  man  would  have  been  astute  indeed  who 
could  ever  have  trapped  him  into  anything  that  compromised 
him  by  the  amount  of  a  fourpenny-bit.  He  had  a  very  whole, 
come  reluctance  for  signing  his  name,  and  any  letters  he  ever 
wrote  were  of  Spartan  brevity.  Yet  this  morning  he  had  had 
a  good  many,  and  they  all  pleased  him.  Some  were  from  the 
firm  of  Tindall  &  Co.,  written  by  Ignatius  Mathiusin  Hebrew. 


158  CHAKDOS. 

Treveniia  was  a  clever  linguist,  and  had  some  lialf-dozen 
languages  at  his  tongue's  end,  though  he  never  confessed  to 
knowing  more  than  a  very  Anglicized,  PahTis-Eoyal,  cafe- 
learned  French,  wliich  he  would  jabber  villainously. 

"  Makes  you  look  un-English  to  speak  Parisian  well,*'  re- 
flected this  aspirant  to  be  a  representative  of  the  British  pa- 
tion;  and  he  would  only  let  men  find  out  by  degrees  even  that 
he  had  a  most  scholarly  culture  in  classics,  making  the  con- 
cession for  the  sake  of  college-men's  prejudices,  though  at 
Darshamjjton  he  woald  not  have  had  the  truth  whispered  for 
worlds  that  he  could  pen  quite  perfect  Ciceronian  Latin. 

From  Darshampton,  too,  a  mighty  manufacturing  town, 
where  faces  might  be  grimy  but  heads  were  very  clear,  letters 
came  that  gratified  him.  He  was  beginning  to  be  known 
there  in  their  Unions  and  their  Institutes — talked  of  there  as 
a  rising  man  and  as  a  rarely  quick-witted  one.  He  had  felt 
his  way  there  very  cautiously;  for  he  could  not  serve  two 
masters,  and  be  the  Chicot  of  fashion  and  the  Demosthenes  of 
labor,  very  well,  in  a  breath.  Both  his  masters  would  have 
given  him  his  conge.  But  he  was  equal  to  greater  difiiculties, 
even,  than  those  of  playing  the  part  of  amuse  to  his  aristo- 
cratic patrons  and  that  of  pupil  to  his  democratic  inviters  at 
the  same  time.  He  could  mako  a  club-lounger  smile,  and  he 
could  make  a  north-country  operative  grin;  and  he  had  not 
much  fear  of  ultimately  turning  both  to  his  jDurpose.  For 
Kapoleon  himself  had  never  more  intense  volition,  Eobert 
Bruce  himself  never  more  patient  perseverance,  than  this  mer- 
carlo]  Jl (hi ettr  of  Pall  Mall. 

He  had  come  here  to  read  his  letters,  because  no  one  ever 
wandered  into  the  portrait-gallery  save  at  such  times  as  it  was 
turned  into  a  second  ball-room,  and,  having  finished  them,  he 
sauntered  up  and  down,  revolving  their  contents  in  his  mind 
— a  mind  into  which  nothing  ever  entered  hut  to  be  fertilized 
to  its  widest  extent.  Just  above  him,  as  he  reached  the  end, 
was  an  alcove  in  which  hung  alone  one  Kneller  picture,  an- 
swering at  the  other  end  a  Vandyke  Charles  the  First,  as 
grand  a  picture  as  the  Petworth,  given  to  Evelyn  Chandos  by 
his  king  himself.  The  Kneller  was  the  portrait  of  the  last 
marquis,  who  had  joined  the  standard  at  Preston,  and  fought 
with  Perth  in  the  fatal  left  wing  at  Culloden,  breaking  his 
sword  at  the  prince's  feet  when  the  staff  dissuaded  him  from 
a  final  charge  for  victory  or  death.  The  marquis  had  been 
offered  life  and  honors  if  he  would  have  divulged  certain 
►Stuart  secrets  known  to  be  in  his  hands,  and,  rejecting  the 
offer  witli  a  calm  disdain,  had  died  on  Tower  Hill  with  his 


i 


CHAKDOS.  15(^ 

graod,  mournful,  moqiieur  smile  on  his  lips  to  the  last,  and 
bowed  his  graceful  head  upon  the  block  with  the  motto  of  his 
race,  "  Tout  est  perdu,  fors  I'honneur.  ■" 

Trait  by  trait,  look  for  look,  the  Kneller  portrait  was  repro- 
duced in  the  features  of  his  last  descendant.  The  picture  of 
the  last  marquis  might  have  been  the  likeness  of  the  present 
Chandos.     Trevenna  looked  up  at  it. 

"  Well,  my  lord,"  he  murmured,  a  little  aloud,  in  that 
innate  loquacity  which  talked  to  inanimate  things  rather  than 

not  talk  at  all,  "  there  you  are,  with  your  d d  proud  smile, 

that  he  has  got  just  like  you  to-day.  So  you  began  life  the 
most  maguiticent  man  of  your  time,  and  ended  on  Tower 
Hill?  That  sort  of  difference  between  the  opening  and  the 
finale  is  rather  characteristic  of  your  race.  Perhaps  you'll  see 
something  like  it  again." 

The  calm  eyes  of  the  portrait  seemed  to  glance  downward 
with  a  serene  disdain.  Trevenna  turned  on  his  heel,  singing 
a  chanson  of  the  Closerie,  and  only  wheeling  round  when 
he  came  opposite  a  portrait  of  a  man  in  the  gold  robes  of  Ex- 
chequer: it  was  that  of  the  famous  minister  Philip  Chandos, 
who  had  died  like  Chatham.  "Ah,  mon  ministre!"  apostro- 
phized Trevenna,  "  your  son  is  a  very  brilliant  personage; 
and  yet 

"  '  Lord  Timon  shall  be  left  a  naked  gull. 
Who  flashes  now  a  phenix.' 

You  were  a  great  man;  but  you  and  I  shall  be  quits  for  all 
that.*' 

At  that  moment  the  door  opened.  Chandos  entered  the 
gallery.  ''  What  on  earth  are  you  doing  here,  Trevenna?  I 
have  looked  for  you  everywhere.    Are  you  turned  connoisseur?'^ 

AVhere  he  stood — under  the  Vandyke  Stuart  j^icture — in  a 
velvet  riding-dress,  he  looked  so  like  the  Kneller  portrait  of 
the  last  marquis  that  even  Trevenna  almost  started,  though 
he  was  ready  with  his  answer. 

"  I  was  reading  my  letters.  This  house  is  so  full  of  peojde 
that  the  library  is  as  bad  as  a  club-room.  The  betting's  quite 
steady  in  town  on  the  colt — " 

"  Certain  to  be.  I  came  to  speak  to  you  of  a  hote  I  have 
had  this  morning,  among  others,  from  Sir  Jasper  Lyle.  Ho 
tells  me  the  state  of  his  health  will  con4.pel  his  retirement  from 
the  borough.  He  acquaints  me  with  it  first,  but  he  will  resign 
immediately;  his  disease  is  confirmed — poor  fellow!  Now,  as 
you  know,  the  borough  is  almost  wholly  at  my  disposal;  to 
my  nominee  there  will  be  no  sort  of  opposition — not  because 


160  CHANDOS. 

the  people  are  not  free  to  act,  but  because  they  are  a  quiet, 
thin  population,  who  for  generations  liave  been  used  to  re- 
ceive their  representative  from  my  family — " 

"  Free  and  enlightened  electors/'  put  in  Trevenna,  with  a 
certain  grim  humor  in  the  parenthesis;  and  yet  his  heart  was 
beating  quicker  than  it  had  ever  beat.  He  divined  what  was 
coming. 

"  They  have  at  least  been  better  represented  than  metropolis 
tan  boroughs/'  said  Chandos,  with  a  touch  of  annoyance. 
"  We  have  never  supported  a  mere  puppet  or  a  mere  partisan. 
We  have  given  the  little  town  to  the  cleverest  man  we  could 
find;  and  my  father  represented  it  himself,  if  I  remember,  for 
ten  years  or  more.  What  I  came  to  ask  you  was^.  will  you  like 
to  be  returned  for  it?" 

Looking  at  him,  he  saw  the  eager  and  exultant  light  flash 
into  Trevenna's  eyes,  the  sudden  lightning-like  upleaping  of  a 
long-smoldering  ambition.  The  daring,  aspiring,  indomitable 
nature  of  the  man  seemed  instantaneously  revealed  before 
him,  from  under  the  surface  of  social  gayeties  and  jaunty 
bonhomie. 

"  Like  it!"  In  that  moment  Trevenna  felt  too  genuinely 
to  have  words  ready  to  his  facile  lips.  Political  life  had  been 
the  goal  for  which  through  years,  when  men  would  have  called 
him  a  madman  for  such  audacious  follies,  he  had  *'  scorned 
delight,  and  loved  laborious  days,"  with  its  set  purpose  before 
him,  none  the  less  steadily  stormed  because  the  golden  gates 
seemed  hopeless  adamant  to  force.  Of  late  he  had  said  to 
himself  that  come  it  would,  come  it  should.  But  now  that  it 
did  come — the  thin  edge  of  the  wedge  which,  once  inserted, 
•would  Q-pen  for  him  all  the  gates  of  position  and  power — the 
jester  had  no  banter,  the  liar  no  lie. 

"I  thought  you  would,"  said  Chandos,  where  they  stood 
under  the  Stuart  picture,  with  the  proud  eyes  of  the  last  mar- 
quis gazing  down  on  them  from  the  far  distance.  "  You  are 
the  very  man  for  the  Commons,  and  I  should  not  be  surprised 
if  some  day  I  come  down  to  hear  you  unfold  a  Budget!  Ver; 
well,  then;  we  will  put  you  into  nomination  immediately  Sir 
Jasper's  resignation  is  made  known,  and  there  is  not  a  doubt 
of  the  result." 

"  But — would  not  you — "  For  once  in  his  life,  Trevenna 
was  almost  silent,  almost  agitated.  The  great  prize  of  his  life 
had  seemed  to  have  fallen  into  his  hands  like  a  ripe  fruit. 

"//"  said  Chandos,  horritied.  "Have  you  known  mo 
all  this  time  only  to  ask  such  a  question?  They  have  begged 
me  over  and  over  again  to  stand  for  the  town  or  the  county. 


CHAN  DOS.  ICl 

but  I  have  always  told  them  that  if  I  must  suffer  for  my  sins 
I  would  prefer  purgatory  itself  at  ouce:  I  would  rather  be 
burned  than  be  bored!  As  for  you,  I  really  do  believe  you 
will  enjoy  serving  on  committees,  going  in  for  supply,  darting 
in  to  save  a  count-out,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  So— it  is  a  set- 
tled matter?" 

"  Eeally — on  my  life,  Ohandos,  I  can  not  thank  you 
enough."  Even  on  Trevenna^s  face  there  came  something 
of  a  fiush  of  shame,  and  into  his  voice  something  of  the  husky 
hesitation  of  conscience-moved  restlessness:  for  one  moment 
the  contrast  of  this  man's  actions  and  his  own  struck  him 
with  a  force  that  left  him  without  his  usual  weapons.  Chan- 
dos  saw  in  this  nothing  beyond  the  reaction  of  a  sudden  and 
pleasurable  surprise;  he  laid  his  hand  kindly  on  the  other's 
shoulder. 

"  Thank  me  by  showing  them  in  the  House  what  my  friend 
can  prove  himself!  And,  Trevenna,  look  here:  do  not  think 
that  because  you  are  returned  through  my  influence  you  are 
for  a  moment  expected  to  represent  my  opinions.  The 
borough  is  a  quiet,  colorless  little  place,  that  will  ask  you  no 
questions  provided  you  adequately  attend  to  its  sea-coast  in- 
terests; you  may  do  anything  else  that  you  like.  I  hear  that 
you  have  lately  been  lecturing,  or  something,  in  the  North — 
that  you  have  been  expressing  views  totally  different  from 
those  you  hear  in  my  set.  iSlow  understand,  once  for  all,  I 
"wish  you  to  enter  public  life  entirely  unshackled.  Choose  your 
party,  or  remain  an  independent  member:  act  precisely  as  you 
deem  most  true  and  most  wise.  After  living  among  us,  I  am 
not  afraid  you  will  join  the  Ultras  in  pulling  our  houses  down 
over  our  heads  and  in  parceling  our  estates  into  building 
allotments;  but,  whatever  you  genuinely  believe,  let  that  be 
what  you  advocate  in  the  House,  as  though  neither  I  nor 
Clarencieux  existed. " 

With  these  words  he  went  out,  to  spare  his  presence  to  the 
man  whom  he  had  just  assisted  to  the  fruitage  of  his  most 
hopeless  ambition. 

Treveuna  stood  still  and  silent,  struck  mute  for  the  instant 
with  the  blaze  of  his  rising  fortunes,  and  moved  for  one  lleet- 
ing  second  with  a  heavy  sense  of  treacherous  shame. 
"  Damnation!"  he  said,  in  his  teeth:  "  for  five  minutes  J 
almost  forgot  to  hate  him!" 

Half  in  shadow,  half  in  sunlight,  in  the  noontide  of  the  day, 
Sat  the  Queen  of  Lilies. 

A  cluster  of  tall  copper  beeches  stood  out  before  a  deep 


163  CHANDOS. 

dark  screen  of  crag,  and  waved  and  tossed  together  in  grand 
confusion,  and  wild  as  they  had  been  in  the  days  of  the 
Druids,  only  broken  hero  and  there  by  the  rush  of  some  tum- 
bling torrent.  Under  the  beeches  was  a  broken  wishing-well, 
its  stones  covered  with  ivy,  its  brink  overgrown  with  heaths 
and  maidenhair  and  countless  violets.  Here,  some  ten  miles 
beyond  Clarencieux,  in  this  lonely  forest-land  of  her  brother- 
in-law's  shooting-jDlace,  Lady  Valencia  sat  in  solitude,  with 
the  falling  of  the  waters  only  mingled  with  the  thrill  of  a 
nightingale's  evening  note  poured  out  on  the  hush  of  the 
noon.  In  her  most  sovereign  moments  she  had  never  looked 
so  lovely  as  now,  in  the  complete  negligence,  abandonment, 
almost  dejection,  of  her  attitude.  She  leaned  against  the  stone 
coping  of  the  well,  one  arm  resting  on  it,  so  that  her  hand, 
half  unconsciously,  played  now  and  then  with  the  green  coils 
of  leaves  and  grasses  falling  in  the  water;  her  head  drooped 
slightly;  there  was  sadness,  almost  melancholy,  in  the  musing 
shadow  of  her  liquid  eyes.  A  volume  of  "  Lucrece  "  lay  ut 
her  feet;  a  water-spaniel  waited  near,  wistfully  watching  for 
her  notice.  The  melody  of  bird  or  river  had  no  music  on  her 
ear:  she  was  thinking  very  wearily. 

Thus— she  all  insensible  of  his  gaze — Chandos  saw  her. 

He  paused,  checked  his  horse  as  he  rode  through  a  bridle- 
path hidden  in  foliage,  wavered  an  instant,  then  flung  the  rein 
to  his  servant,  bade  him  ride  on,  and  went  backward,  through 
the  entangled  meshes  of  the  leaves,  toward  the  ruined  wish- 
ing-well. 

His  step  made  no  echo  on  the  moss;  unseen  he  noted  the 
weariness  of  languor  in  the  dreaming  repose,  the  musing  pain, 
that  darkened  the  eyes  that  gazed  down  absently  on  the  pur- 
ple wealth  of  the  violet  buds.  "  Does  she  regret  me?"  he 
thought;  and  at  sight  of  that  living  beauty  which  had  haunted 
him  through  Eastern  cities  and  Italian  air,  the  old  soft,  way- 
ward, unresisted  passion  which  had  so  often  ruled  him,  yet 
never  reigned  more  utterly  than  it  was  near  reigning  now, 
woke  in  all  its  force.  He  thought  neither  of  penalty  nor  of 
consequence,  of  wisdom  nor  of  future;  he  thought  alone  of 
her. 

The  movement  of  his  hand  as  he  put  aside  the  red  gold  of 
the  copper-beech  leaves  and  the  light  spring  buds  of  the  young 
ivy-coils  caught  her  ear;  she  lifted  her  eyes,  and  met  the  elo- 
quence of  his.  She  rose,  with  something  almost  hurried  and 
tremulous  in  the  dignity  of  her  serene  grace;  her  face  flushed, 
her  glance  had  a  light  in  it  he  had  never  seen  there;  sudden 
surprise  changed  the  calm  of  her  grand  and  delicate  beauty  to 


CHANDOS.  163 

a  new  warmth  and  hesitation  that  lent  a  still  fairer  life.  In 
that  instant,  as  he  saw  her  under  the  burnished  gold  of  the 
arching  sunlit  leaves,  he  could  not  doubt  but  that  she  loved 
him. 

"  You  have  returned?"  The  words  were  low  and  unstudied, 
as  though  in  the  surprise  of  his  presence  there  her  proud  tran- 
quillity broke  down, 

"Ah!  forgive  me  that  I  ever  wandered  away.  Forgetful- 
ness  did  not  go  with  me.''* 

He  scarcely  thought,  he  never  measured,  what  he  said;  he 
thought  only  of  her  loveliness,  there  in  the  shadows  of  the 
spring-time  leafage;  and  the  loveliness  of  women  had  always 
done  with  him  what  it  would.  He  bent  nearer  to  her,  look- 
ing down  into  her  eyes  with  a  gaze  that  made  them  droop,  and 
made  her  heart  beat  with  a  swift,  uncertain  throb,  a  vague 
gleam  of  hope.  "  My  love!  my  love!"  he  murmured,  think- 
ing no  more  of  the  cost  and  issue  of  his  words  than  he  had 
thought  when  he  had  murmured  such  against  the  warm  cheek 
of  some  young  Eastern  odalisque,  or  gazing  into  the  luster  of 
Southern  eyes  under  the  Spanish  stars  or  by  the  shores  of 
Procida,  "  we  must  not  part  again!" 

The  music  of  his  voice  stole  upon  her  ear,  charming  and 
lulling  her  into  its  own  trance  of  passion;  the  deep  warmth  of 
a  hot  flush  stole  over  all  her  beauty,  intensifying  every  delicate 
hue,  like  the  warmth  from  the  noon  through  the  crimson 
leaves;  and  as  he  drew  her  into  his  embrace,  with  his  kiss  he 
bartered  his  peace,  his  honor,  and  his  future;  for  it,  in  that 
hour  of  her  power,  he  would  have  thought  the  world  well 
lost.  The  violets  blossoming,  dew-laden,  at  their  feet — flower 
of  the  poets,  and  crown  of  child-Protus's  golden  hair — were 
not  more  sweet  than  that  first  birth  and  utterance  of  love. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   POEM   AS   WOMEIST    READ   IT. 

Before  a  fire  (for  she  fancied  or  liked  to  say  she  was  chilly, 
in  those  late  April  days  that  were  well-nigh  as  warm  as  sum- 
mer) Lady  Chesterton  lay  sulkily  reclining  in  her  little  bou- 
doir, a  little  green-paneled  chamber,  chiefly  noticeable  for  its 
collection  of  one  of  her  j)assions — curious  china — Pose  Berri, 
Henri  Deux,  and  every  sort  of  faience  that  time  had  ennobled 
and  rarity  endeared.  She  was  very  sullen,  very  grave,  very 
moody.  She  was  bitter  as  gall  in  her  own  soul.  The  distan't 
cousin  she  hated,  because  he  had  inherited  her  father's  title, 


164  CHANDOS. 

had  been  left  a  fortune  that  would  enable  him  to  raise  the 
Ivors  peerage  to  its  old  glories,  whilst  her  husband  was  so 
heavily  in  debt  that  the  narrowest  continental  economy  would 
not  better  him.  This  house  that  tliey  had  talien  on  their 
hands  so  vainly,  with  its  shootings  that  had  entailed  so  much 
expense,  bad  served  them  no  purpose.  Lord  Clydesmore  was 
hopeless  to  attract  again  after  his  first  repulse;  other  men  were 
coy  of  her  beautiful  sister — a  marquis's  daughter,  and  portion- 
less. She  herself  loved  show,  wealth,  magnificence,  all  the 
esclusivism  of  greatness  in  its  greatest;  and  she  was  literally 
poorer  tiian  one  of  the  gamekeepers's  wives  out  in  the  park 
yonder — poorer,  for  the  keeper's  wife  could  accept  her  poverty, 
and  the  peeress  had  to  go  to  court  as  a  lady-in-waiting,  and  to 
rack  her  brains  afterward  to  stave  off  the  milliner  who  sent 
her  court-dresses. 

"  I  wish  I  were  one  of  those  wretched  women  in  the  cottages 
in  the  woods!"  she  thought.  "  They  have  to  bake,  and  to 
scrub,  and  to  slap  their  dirty  children,  and  to  pinch  and 
screw,  and  live  on  pork  and  potatesj  but  they  are  better  off 
than  1:  they  have  nothing  to  keep  tip  !" 

It  was  a  bitter  truth,  and  she  felt  its  bitterness  to  the 
utmost,  where  she  sat,  curled  in  the  velvets  and  silks  and  lux- 
ury that  those  she  envied  would  have  so  envied  "  my  lady" 
could  they  have  looked  on  her  in  her  solitude.  She  turned 
her  head  slowly  as  the  door  opened,  glanced  up  with  half-closed 
eyes,  then  returned  to  the  moody  contemplation  of  the  fire. 
She  had  been  a  very  miserable  companion,  a  very  gloomy 
tyrant,  to  her  sister  during  this  winter,  when  they  had  been 
mewed  in  leafless  woods  for  nothing,  with  no  dinner-party 
nearer  than  fifteen  miles,  hearing  of  that  "  odious  man  Tre- 
venna's  "  men-parties  at  Clarencieux,  and  hopeless  of  ever 
seeing  its  lost  lord  return.  Nor  had  the  mouth  or  so  of  the 
town-season  much  improved  her  temper,  now  that  she  was 
back  again  for  the  recess. 

Lady  Valencia  came  up  in  silence  till  she  stood  before  the 
fire;  her  black  laces  swept  round  her  over  a  white  morning- 
dress  (she  wore  that  floating  dead  white  as  no  other  could), 
and  there  had  caught  across  it,  in  unnoticed  ornament,  one  of 
the  long  ivy  coils  with  leaves  of  darkest,  buds  of  lightest  green. 

"  What  a  draught  you  bring  in  with  you!"  shivered  Lady 
Chesterton,  peevishly.  "  Good  gracious!  you  are  dressed  as 
if  it  were  summer.  Take  care,  pray;  you  brush  Uragee's 
hair  the  wrong  way!" 

Moving  her  skirts  from  the  little  lion-dog,  Lady  Valencia 
stood  silent  still.     Her  sister  looked  up  at  her  and  wondered. 


CHAKDOS.  165 

The  brilliance  of  the  spring-tide  seemed  to  hav^e  lingered  on 
the  Queen  of  Lilies;  there  was  a  new  look  upon  her  face. 

"  What  has  happened?"  asked  the  peeress,  sharply. 

She  looked  down  on  the  baroness  with  a  certain  haughty 
contempt.  She  owed  her  sister  many  a  goading  irritation, 
many  a  sneering  taunt. 

"  Your  sacrifice  at  Forest  Hill  has  not  been  in  vain/'  she 
said,  calmly  detaching  the  green  ivy-spray  from  her  dress. 

Lady  Chesterton  started  up  in  her  chair,  her  black  eyes  all 
vivid  animation.     - 

"  Valencia!  you  do  not  mean  that  Chandos — " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Lily  Queen,  serenely  still;  but  she  turned 
her  head  with  the  lofty  supremacy  of  a  victorious  queen;  a 
proad  triumph  flashed  in  the  velvet  depths  of  her  eyes;  every 
h'ne  of  her  form,  every  curve  of  her  lips,  expressed  conquest; 
"  yes,  we  have  won.     I  shall  be  mistress  of  Clarencieux!" 

Had  Chandos  been  there  in  that  moment,  he  would  have 
seen  it  were  better  for  him  that  he  should  lie  in  his  grave  than 
that  she  should  be  so. 


CHAPTER  Vin. 

IK  THE   EOSE    GARDEN'S. 

Chandos,  as  it  was,  could  scarcely  have  said  that  the  same 
triumph  remained  with  him. 

Waking  to  calmer  reflection  and  recollection  as  he  rode 
homeward,  the  price  that  he  must  pay  for  the  words  he  had 
uttered,  for  the  caress  he  had  given,  on  an  impulse  of  passion 
stronger  than  himself,  stole  to  his  thoughts  with  a  chill.  For 
marriage  he  had  an  utter  distaste — of  his  liberty  a  surpassing 
love;  the  slightest  bondage  was  unendurable  to  him.  He  had 
never  had  anything  to  consult  except  his  own  free  will;  and 
inconstancy  in  taste,  in  pursuit,  in  amusement,  and  in  resi- 
dence had  become  his  habit,  if  it  were  not  his  nature.  To- 
endure  control,  to  have  to  tell  his  plans  ere  he  followed  them, 
not  to  go  where  caprice  took  him,  unasked  and  unshackled, 
to  have  any  companion  with  him  through  custom  instead  of 
inclination,  or  to  have  the  same  with  him  long  together,  all 
that  some  men  take  naturally,  to  him  would  have  been  intol- 
erable slavery„  It  may  be  hence  imagined  that  nothing  could 
be  more  repugnant  or  less  suited  to  him  than  marriage;  and 
the  thought  of  what  ho  had  done  on  the  spur  of  an  irresistible 
beauty  and  a  vainly  resisted  love  weighed  on  him  curiously  as 
he  rode  through  the  aisles  of  pjues  and  over  the  vast  undulat' 


166  CHANDOS. 

ing  sward  of  the  outlying  lands,  with  the  soraicl  of  the  sea  from 
the  distance,  and  in  the  sunny  air  tlie  winged  dwellers  of  (he 
beach,  the  delicate  tern,  the  rare  hen-harrier,  the  rnig-plover, 
and  the  mallard,  flying  above  the  wild  thyme  and  the  still 
moor-pools.  His  life  had  not  a  shadosv:  why  had  he  not  left 
it  as  it  was?  He  loved  her — he  loved  her  with  a  great  passion 
that,  through  her  beauty,  swayed  him  like  a  reeil;  and  yet  a 
strange  weariness,  a  strange  depression,  came  upon  him  as  he 
swept  over  the  wild  wolds.  He  felt  as  though  he  had  surren- 
dered up  his  future  into  bondage. 

As  he  turned  his  horse  into  the  home-woods,  leaving  the  pur- 
ple moor-lands  that  were  the  sea-shore  appanage  of  Giaren- 
cieux  at  a  cross-road,  one  of  his  own  hunters  "was  spurred  after 
him.     Trevenna  came  up  with  him. 

"  How  you  do  ride!"  cried  Trevenna,  himself  a  good  but 
cautious  horseman,  not  caring  very  much  for  the  saddle. 
"  You  will  break  your  neck,  surely,  some  day.  How  you  took 
that  gate!  By  the  way,  if  you  were  to  do  such  a  thing,  who  is 
your  heir?     There  is  no  other  Chandos. " 

"  The  estates  would  go  to  the  Castlemaine  family:  I  have 
no  nearer  relatives,"  answered  Chandos,  a  little  wearily.  Now, 
of  all  other  times,  he  could  have  wished  the  incessant  chatter 
of  his  Chicot  far  away. 

"  Ah,  but  you'll  marry  some  time  or  other,  of  course.** 

Chandos  gave  a  gesture  of  impatience:  the  word  gratod 
terribly  on  his  ear.  Trevenna  glanced  at  him,  and  knew  what 
he  wanted.  Through  his  reconnoiterer-glass  he  had  seen  the 
wishing-well,  and  the  two  who  had  stood  beneath  the  copper 
beeches,  and  he  wished  to  learn  how  far  the  affair  had  gone. 
The  impatient  gesture  told  him.  He  had  studied  every  im- 
pulse and  minutest  trait  of  Chandos's  character  till  he  could 
gauge  his  feeling  and  his  meaning  to  the  slightest  shade. 

"  The  ladies  were  upbraiding  you  loudly  for  your  desertion, 
when  I  left  the  house.  They  had  sauntered  down  out  of  theii 
rooms  to  ride  and  drive,  and  were  indignant  not  to  have  their 
host  en  proie,"  he  went  on,  carelessly;  he  knew  his  companion 
too  well  to  press  the  other  subject.  "  As  for  me,  I  have  been 
meditating  on  my  coming  greatness.  Eeally,  have  you  thought 
well  of  it,  Chandos?  Your  friends  will  say  you  have  put  an 
adventurer  in  the  House." 

"  They  will  not  say  so  to  me;  and  if  they  do  to  you,  you  can 
give  them  more  than  they  send.  Besides,  you  will  have  good 
company;  did  not  they  say  so  of  Canning?" 

"Then  you  are  really  resolved  on  lifting  me  to  St. 
Stephen's?" 


CHANDOS.  167 

"Assuredly/* 

*'  Upon  my  word,  monseigneur,  you  make  one  think  of 
Timon's 

"  '  I  could  deal  kingdoms  to  my  friends. 
And  ne'er  be  weary  1'  " 

"  Timon!  You  choose  me  an  ominous  parallel.  Would 
you  all  be  '  feast-won,  fast-lost?'  " 

"The  deuce!     I  dare  say  we  should." 

The  answer  was  rough,  but  it  was  true  as  far  as  it  went. 
There  were  times  when  Trevenna  could  not  quite  help  being 
truthful.  Lying  invariably  will  become  as  weary  work,  some- 
times, as  telling  truth  becomes  to  most  people;  and  there  was 
a  cynical  candor  in  the  fellow  not  always  to  be  broken  into 
ti'aining. 

"  I  w^ould  trust  you  sooner  not  to  be,  Trevenna,  for  the 
frankness  of  that  admission,"  said  Chandos,  right  in  his  de- 
duction, even  if  he  should  be  wrong  in  this  present  instance. 
"  Look  at  that  glimpse  of  sea  through  the  pines;  how  won- 
derful in  color!" 

The  deep  blue  of  the  sea-line  glistened  to  violet  beyond  the 
dark-green  boughs  and  the  russet  shafts  of  the  pine-stems. 
The  woods  of  the  deer-forest  stretched  in  rolhng  masses  up- 
ward and  inland;  and  beyond,  tinged  with  the  brightest  h'ght, 
stood  the  magnificent  pile  of  the  castle.     Trevenna  looked. 

*'  Yes,  very  pretty." 

"  Good  heavens!  you  speak  as  if  it  were  the  transformation- 
scene  of  a  ballet!" 

"  I  like  a  ballet  a  good  deal  better.  Clouds  of  transparent 
skirts  are  better  than  clouds  of  transparent  mists.  You  are 
very  fond  of  this  place,  Ernest!" 

"  It  were  odd  if  I  were  not.  I  can  fancy  how  it  was  dead" 
lier  to  the  last  marquis  than  to  sever  from  friend  or  mistress, 
when  he  had  to  look  his  last  on  Clarencieus." 

Trevenna  smiled,  and  flicked  his  horse  thoughtfully  between 
the  ears,  as  they  rode  on  in  silence. 

"  Thou  givest  so  long,  Timon,  I  fear  me 
Thou  wilt  give  thyself  away  in  paper,  shortly," 

ran  the  thread  of  liis  musings. 

Trevenna's  momentary  i)ang  of  conscience  in  the  morning 
had  been  particularly  short-lived.  It  had  died  with  the  next 
look  upward  to  the  face  of  the  last  marquis. 

At  that  moment,  entering  on  the  clearer  spaces  of  the  Home 
Park,  where  four  avenues  of  gigantic  limes  crossed  and  met 


16S  CHANDOS. 

each  other,  oue  of  the  most  singular  beauties  of  Clarendeux, 
they  encountered  another  riding-party  escorting  a  httle  pony- 
carriage  drawn  by  four  perfect  piebalds,  and  containing  Ma- 
dame de  la  Yivarol  and  a  Russian  j)rincess.  Among  the  escort 
were  the  Koyal  Due  de  ISTeuilly,  and  another  due,  not  royal, 
but  a  European  notoriety  all  the  same — Philippe  Fran9ois,  Duo 
d'Orvale.  Philippe  d'Orvale  was  a  character — Europe  was 
given  to  saying,  too,  a  very  bad  character.  Chief  of  one  of  the 
great  feudal  races  of  France,  now  growing  fewer  and  fewer 
with  every  generation,  he  was,  so  to  speak,  born  in  the  pur- 
ples, and  had  lived  in  them  up  to  the  time  when  he  was  now 
some  fifty  years  of  age.  Exceedingly  handsome,  he  still  pre- 
served  his  debonair  graces.  Excessively  talented,  he  could 
on  occasion  outwit  a  Metternich,  a  Talleyrand,  or  a  Palmer- 
ston.  Extremely  poi^ular,  he  was  the  prince  of  bon-vivants. 
With  all  this,  Philipjje  d^Orvale  had  achieved  a  reputation  too 
closely  allied  to  that  of  his  namesake  of  D'Orleans  not  to  be 
considered  a  thorough-going  reprobate,  and  to  care  infinitely 
less  f«r  succeeding  in  the  field  of  state-affairs  and  political  tri- 
umphs than  for  succeeding  in  dancing  a  new  Spanish  cachucha, 
in  brewing  a  new  liqueur-jiunch  at  his  soiipers  a  hut's  dof!,  in 
dazzling  Paris  with  some  mad  freak  of  exuberant  nonsense, 
and  in  leading  the  Demi-Monde  in  all  its  wildest  extrava- 
gances, lie  had  a  good  deal  in  him  of  the  madcap  mixture 
that  was  in  the  character  of  the  Emperor  Maximihan,  and, 
like  him,  scouted  courts,  titles,  states,  and  dignities  for  some 
reckless  piece  of  devil-may-care,  He  might  have  been  any- 
thing he  chose;  but  he,  duke  and  peer  of  France,  decorated 
with  half  the  orders  of  Europe,  descendant  of  nobles  who  had 
been  cousins  of  Valois  and  nephews  of  Bourbon  and  Medici, 
did  not  choose  to  be  anything  except  the  chief  of  the  Free 
Lances  and  the  sovereign  patron  of  singers  and  ballet-dancers. 
Certes,  he  enjoyed  himself  and  looked  on  at  his  gay  world 
unsated  out  of  his  careless  eyes;  but  his  family  thought  him 
mad,  and  had,  indeed,  tried  to  restrain  him  from  the  control 
of  his  vast  properties,  till  Due  Philippe,  suddenly  taking  it 
into  his  head  to  show  them  he  was  sane,  went  to  Vienna,  and 
conducted  a  delicate  imbroglio  so  matchlessly  for  France  that 
it  was  impossible  to  support  the  charge  any  longer,  though, 
having  so  vindicated  his  sanity,  he  returned  directly  to  his  own 
courses,  and  was  found  at  breakfast  next  day  with  three 
actresses  from  the  Varietes,  an  inimitable  buffo-singer  from 
the  Cafe  Alcazar,  a  posture-dancer  of  the  pavement  of  the 
Palais  Koyal,  in  whom  he  declared  he  had  discovered  a  rela- 
tive, and  a  PifPeraro's  monkey  seated  solemnly  in  state  in  one 


CHANDOS.  169 

of  the  velvet  chairs,  munching  truffles  and  praslins,  amidst 
the  chorus  of  Rossini's  "  Papatacci,"  sung  by  the  whole  party 
and  led  by  D'Orvale  himself. 

A  man  who  will  set  down  a  Barbarynpe  at  bistable,  Europe, 
of  course,  will  pronounce  out  of  bis  senses:  yet  a  more  finished 
gentleman  than  Due  Pbilippe  never  box^ed  before  a  throne; 
and  while  Europe  in  a  mass  pronounced  him  tlie  most  hideous 
amalgamation  of  vices,  two  or  three  who  knew  him  well,  among 
whom  was  Chandos,  steadily  upheld  that  tbere  was  not  an 
ounce  of  real  evil  in  this  bearded  hon  enfant. 

John  Trevenna,  as  far  as  dissipation  went,  was  a  perfectly 
irreproachable  character,  and  had  not  really  a  vice  that  could 
be  put  down  at  his  score;  Phihppe  d'Orvale  was  a  very  re- 
proachable  one,  and  had,  beyond  a  doubt,  a  good  many:  yet 
perhaps  both  Guido  LuUi  and  Beau  Sire  were  in  the  right  when 
they  shrunk  from  the  keen  blue  eyes  of  the  one,  and  came  up 
without  fear,  sure  of  a  kindly  word,  under  the  sunny  gaze  of 
the  other. 

The  next  night  there  were,  as  commonly  when  the  house 
was  filled,  theatricals  at  Clarencieux.  The  same  Paris  troupe 
which  had  gone  to  Constantinople  were  down  here  for  the  re- 
cess, re-enforced  by  a  new  actress  of  the  most  enchanting  tal- 
ents, and  by  John  Trevenna,  who  had  the  most  inimitable 
powers  of  mimicry  ever  seen  on  a  stage,  and  who  now  played 
in  the  first  vaudeville,  as  an  Englishman  on  his  initiatory  trip 
to  Paris,  in  a  manner  that  Arual  himself  never  eclipsed,  and 
in  the  second  most  audaciously  mimicked  Lord  Clydesmore  in 
an  interlude  written  by  himself,  till  even  the  fastidious  and 
sated  audience  he  played  for  were  in  uncontrollable  laughter, 
and  even  the  ladies,  his  very  woi'st  foes,  were  of  opinion  that 
a  person  who  could  amuse  them  so  well  certainly  deserved  to 
go  into  Parliament,  though  he  did  come  nobody  knew  whence, 
and  had  lodgings  in  town  nobody  knew  where. 

Trevenna  showed  his  wisdom  in  playing  the  part  of  a 
Charles  Mathews  to  this  little  bijou  theater,  since  by  it  he  won 
over  the  toleration  of  his  most  inveterate  and  most  inexorable 
foes. 

The  c  nly  guests,  beside  the  thirty-five  or  forty  people  stay- 
ing in  the  castle,  were  the  Chestertons  and  Lady  Valencia. 
Nothing  had  escaped,  during  the  two  days  of  the  victory  the 
Queen  of  Lilies  had  achieved.  Trevenna,  the  only  one  who 
guessed  it,  held  his  own  counsel;  and  Chandos,  apart  from  the 
aversion  he  had  to  giving  the  vulgarity  of  joublicity  to  his  love, 
felt  that  he  had  a  slightly  troublesome  and  embroiled  task  be- 
fore him  in  breaking  the  intelligence  to  his  fair  tyrant.  La 


170  CHANDOS. 

Vivarol.  There  was  sufficient  mortification  and  irritation  in 
the  hearts  of  his  female  guests  when  they  saw  the  rival  they 
had  believed  hopelessly  defeated  enter  the  drawiug-rooms  of 
Clarencieux  in  all  the  perfection  of  her  loveliness,  and  in  all 
the  evident  restoration  of  her  supremacy,  without  their  iinow- 
ing  the  bitter  extent  of  her  triumjaho  A  prouder  moment  even 
the  Lily  Queen  had  never  wished  for  or  dreamed  of  than  when 
she  first  passed  the  threshold  of  Clarencieux  into  the  mighty 
hall  where  Evelyn  Chandos  had  marshaled  his  cavaliers,  and 
knew  that  she  was  the  future  mistress  of  that  royal  place;  than 
when  she  was  met  upon  the  great  staircase  as  the  Chandos  only 
met  their  sovereigns,  and  knew  that  she  was  the  betrothed 
wife  of  this  brilliant  darling  of  courts,  this  magnificent  leader 
of  fashion,  whom  the  world  had.  said  no  woman  would  ever  so 
woo  and  so  win. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  as  they  passed  from  the  reception-rooms  to 
the  dining-hall,  and  from  the  drawing-rooms  again  to  the 
theater,  through  the  lofty  corridors  ceiled  with  cedar  and  hung 
with  Eenaissance  decorations  on  which  the  first  artists  of  Italy 
had  of  late  years  been  employed,  her  glance  too  often  wandered 
to  the  mere  art-skill  and  costliness  with  which  every  yard  of 
Clarencieux  was  filled — to  the  priceless  pictures,  to  the  delicate 
statues,  to  the  gold  and  the  ivory,  the  malachite  and  the 
jasper,  the  porphyry  and  the  marble,  the  collections  of  a 
princely  wealth  and  of  a  race  eight  centuries  old.  Perhaps 
she  looked  too  much  at  these,  the  mere  possessions  of  acci- 
dent, the  mere  symbols  of  power;  perhaps  the  higher,  deeper, 
softer  treasures  of  the  future  she  liad  won  escaped  her,  and 
were  less  dear  to  her  than  these  insignia  of  her  lover's  rank, 
her  lover's  splendor;  perhaps.  She  had  been  in  the  bitter 
school  of  titled  poverty;  from  her  birth  upward  she  had  been 
so  pi'oud,  and  yet  so  penniless. 

As  they  sat  at  dinner  in  the  bauqueting-hall,  hung  with 
scarlet  and  gold,  with  its  ceiling  arched  above  the  sixteen 
Corinthian  pillars  of  porphyry  given  by  La  Grande  Catherine 
to  a  Chandos  who  had  been  embassador  at  her  court,  the  Queen 
of  Lilies,  haughty  as  an  empress,  delicate  as  a  young  deery 
pure  and  stately  as  the  flower  of  her  emblem  though  she  was, 
appraised  the  grandeur  of  CUirencieux  well-nigh  with  as  crit- 
ical a  surety  as  Ignatius  Mathias  could  have  done,  and  looked 
less  upward  to  where  her  lover  sat  than  opposite  to  where, 
above  the  sculptured  marble  of  the  mighty  hearth,  above  the 
crossed  standards  of  Evelyn  Chandos  and  the  last  marquis,  of 
Edgehill  and  of  Preston,  there  rested  in  a  niche,  all  wrought 
in  ivory  and  silver  in  a  curious  Elorentine  carving,  the  lasi 


CHANDCS.  17  \ 

coronet  that  had  ever  been  worn  by  a  Chandos — the  attaindered 
eoroaet  of  Clarencieux. 

"  Amazingly  Jike  the  last  marquis  he  looks  to-night,  by 
Jove!"  thought  Trevenna,  standing  behind  the  curtain  of  tha 
pretty  stage  before  it  drew  up  for  the  vaudeville,  and  survey- 
ing through  a  chink  the  slope  of  the  theater  filled  with  arm- 
chairs, without  any  partition  into  boxes,  and  all  glittering 
with  arabesques  and  gilding  and  chandeliers,  where  in  the 
center  Chandos  stood  leaning  above  Lady  Valencia's  chair. 
"  Well,  there  is  a  Tower  Hill  waiting  for  him,  too!  Only  my 
lord,  with  his  d — d  proud  smile,  said,  '  All's  lost — except 
honor!'  I  guess  his  descendant  will  say,  '  All's  lost — eveti 
honor!'  We  must  not  strike  till  this  election  matter's  over. 
That  put  me  out  of  my  calculations;  and  it's  too  good  to  lose. 
Only  a  little  while  longer,  though,  shall  I  play  the  fool  to  please 
his  patricians,  and  monseigneur  stand  there  owner  of  Clar- 
encieux.    Aleves — " 

The  bell  rang  a  little  chime;  the  curtain,  exquisitely  painted 
with  a  view  of  Psestum,  drew  up.  Trevenna  sauntered  for- 
ward to  greet  the  Parisienne  actress,  in  his  character  of  Milord 
Brown-Smith,  with  a  flow  of  inimitable  nonsense,  and  an 
effervescence  of  animal  spirits  so  mirthful  and  contagious  that 
the  most  blase  of  his  audience  were  laughed  into  an  irresistible 
good-humor;  and  had  his  election  depended  on  their  votes  he 
would  have  been  safe  into  his  borough  that  instant.  There 
were  only  two  who,  while  they  laughed,  would  have  withheld 
their  suffrage;  they  were  the  Duke  of  Castlemaine  and  Philippe 
Due  d'Orviile — the  two  who,  despite  the  presence  of  women 
whose  fair  eyes  had  vowed  him  such  soft  fidelity,  were  the  two 
in  Clarencieux  that  night  who  loved  Chandos  the  best. 

Some  faint  perception  that  the  tenderness  borne  him  by  the 
Ohe  he  last  wooed  was  not  that  with  which  he,  with  the  fervor 
of  an  imiDassioned  nature  beneath  his  carelessness,  had  loved 
and  been  loved  under  Southern  and  Asiatic  suns,  stirred  in 
him  even  that  night.  He  had  been  hurried  by  her  beauty  into 
the  abandon  of  a  long-resisted  passion;  but  of  her  heart,  of 
her  nature,  of  her  thoughts,  he  knew  nothing.  He  loved  her 
as  poets  love,  seeing  her  through  the  glories  of  his  own  imag- 
inings; but  he  knew  no  more  whether  in  truth  she  answered 
them  than  he  knew  what  he  had  done  for  his  own  future  when 
he  had  drawn  her  into  its  life  with  that  caress  which  left  him 
bound  to  her. 

He  had  been  spoiled  by  a  world  that  had  so  long  adored 
him;  he  had  been  used  to  the  utmost  gratification  of  every 
fancy,  of  every  wish;  he  had  been  intensely  loved  by  women, 


172  CHANEOS. 

used  to  burning  words,  to  Southern  passions,  to  lavished 
tenderness.  In  her  there  was  some  want  that  he  vaguely 
missed,  some  coldness  scarcely  felt,  yet  ever  there,  which  now 
in  the  first  moment  of  his  surrender  to  her  passed  over  him 
with  a  chill.  He  knew  that  he  had  done  a  fatal  thing;  and 
the  thought  haunted  him  even  in  the  gayeties  of  Clareucieux 
- — even  when  for  an  instant  he  was  alone  with  her,  as  he  drew 
her  from  the  ball-rocm  into  the  conservatories,  aisles  of  tropi- 
cal blossom  and  vegetation  glowing  with  the  deep  bronze  of 
South  American  leaves  and  the  scarlet  of  Oriental  fruits  and 
flowers,  the  foliage  of  Mexico  and  the  flora  of  Persia. 

"Ah,  my  Queen  of  Lilies!"  he  murmured,  passionately, 
"you  are  fair  as  the  flower  they  call  you  after;  but  are  you 
as  cold?  You  have  not  yet  learned  what  love  really  is:  look 
into  my  eyes  and  read  it  there  I" 

His  eloquent  eyes  burned  down  into  hers,  their  deep  and 
brilliant  blue  dark  with  the  fire  of  passion,  as  he  wound  her  in 
his  arms  and  covered  her  lips  with  kisses. 

She  drew  herself  softly  from  his  embrace,  startled  and 
flushed  by  the  warmth  of  his  words,  by  the  ardor  of  a  temper- 
ament beside  which  her  own  was  as  ice  to  the  sirocco,  as  the 
moon  to  the  sun. 

"  Where  is  it  that  I  fail?"  she  whispered;  "  how  would  you 
have  me  love  you?" 

There  was  a  jjang  at  his  heart  as  he  pressed  her  to  his 
breast  with  a  caress  in  wliich  he  strove  to  kill  the  chill  doubt 
waking  in  him. 

"  How!  My  fairest,  words  are  but  cold  interpreters;  if  you 
knew,  you  would  not  ask  the  question.  Howr  Speech  can 
not  teach  that  lore.     I  would  be  loved  as  I  love — so  only!'* 


**  Ernest,  pardon  me,**  said  the  Duke  of  Castlemaine,  as 
late  in  that  dawn  he  met  his  grandson,  both  on  their  way  to 
the  smoking-room;  "  but  your  attentions  were  extraordinarily 
marked  to  Lady  Valencia  St.  Albans  to-night— almost  too 
much  so,  since  there  are  princesses  of  the  French  and  Russian 
blood  in  your  house.     If  I  were  not  sure — " 

"  Dear  duke,  be  sure  of  nothing.^'  He  spoke  with  a  smile, 
but  the  smile  had  in  it  something  that  was  almost  mournful. 

His  Grace  paused,  wheeled  round,  and  stared  at  him. 

"  Chandos!  you  can  not  mean — "  He  stopped,  unwilling 
to  put  his  doubt  into  plain  words. 

"  Yes;  I  mean  what  you  are  thinking  of.  I  have  said  more 
than  I  can  unsay.     Let  us  drop  the  subject.'* 


CHAND08.  173 

An  oath  of  the  hot  Regency  days  of  his  early  manhood  broke 
from  under  the  white  cavalry  mustache  of  the  old  nobleman, 
as  he  stood  and  gazed  at  his  favorite  descendant  in  the  silvery 
h'ght  from  the  candelabra  above  their  heads  in  the  corridor. 
He  had  no  need  to  asi\  more  questions;  he  understood  well 
enough,  and  the  comprehension  cut  him  to  the  heart. 

"  Good  God,  Ernest!"  and  there  was  an  accent  of  genuine 
grief,  as  well  as  of  amaze.  "  And  you  might  have  wedded 
royal  women — Louise  d^Albe,  Marie  of  August,  the  Princess 
d'Orvieto!  you  might  have  claimed  the  hand  of  any  one  of 
them!  but  you  declared  that  you  hated  marriage." 

"  I  declared  only  the  truth.  Marriage  I  abhor;  but  her — I 
love. " 

The  duke  ground  his  still  strong,  handsome  teeth  with  a 
fierce  impatience;  he  knew  that  the  Chandosof  Clarencieux^ — 
libertines  perhaps,epicureans  always — had  never  let  any  earth- 
ly wisdom  or  law  or  plea  stand  between  them  and  the  follies  of 
their  hearts  or  passions. 

"  I  knew  she  would  do  it,  if  she  had  the  chance,^*  he  mut- 
tered. "  To  run  after  you  here,  to  come  into  the  country  the 
instant  you  returned  from  Paris — indehcate,  indecent!" 

Chandos  stretched  out  his  hand. 

"  Jlush,  sir;  /can  not  hear  such  accusations.  It  was  not 
her  doing  that  she  came;  she  has  told  me  that  she  was  strong- 
ly averse  to  it,  the  more  averse  because,  as  I  may  now  confess 
for  her,  she  loved  me.^' 

The  duke  swept  his  handover  his  snowy  mustache  with  a 
scornful,  wrathful  gesture. 

''  Keed  she  have  come,  then?  The  daughters  of  Ivors  can 
scarce  be  so  utterly  destitute  of  friends.  She  intrigues  for  you 
as  markedly  as  any  Flora  de  I'Orme,  though  in  a  different 
fashion." 

Chandos  turned  to  him,  grave  almost  to  weariness  for  the 
moment,  but  gentle  as  of  old. 

"  My  dear  duke,  you  know  that  I  would  not  have  a  differ- 
ence with  you  for  the  worth  of  Clarencieux;  but  you  must  not 
use  such  words  in  my  presence  of  one  whom  you  will  hereafter 
receive  as — my  wife." 

Ho  paused  before  the  last  two  syllables;  he  could  not  utter 
them  without  some  pain,  without  some  distrust.  His  Grace 
suppressed  a  deadlier  oath;  he  loved  Chandos  with  more  fond- 
ness than  ho  would  have  cared  to  confess,  and  h^  had,  besides, 
the  most  superb  instincts  of  thorough-bred  courtesy. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,'^  he  said,  with  a  bend  of  his  stately 
head.     "  I  have,  of  course,  no  right  to  comment  on  your 


174  CHAKD'bS. 

choice  or  on  your  actions;  but  all  I  would  ask  you  is,  what 
will  she  recompense  you  for  all  yoa  must  forfeit  for  herr^' 

Chandos  gave  a  half-impatient  sigh,  not  so  low  but  that  it 
caught  his  grandfather's  ear. 

"  It  is  useless  speaking.  It  is  not  that  I  doubt  your  wisdom, 
or  disjjute  your  right  of  counsel;  but  what  is  done  is  done:  let 
us  leave  a  fruitless  subject.'" 

He  moved  on,  and  threw  open  the  door  of  the  smoking- 
room.  The  duke  loved  him  too  well  to  say  more,  but  he 
turned  back  abruptly,  bade  him  good-night,  and  went  to  his 
own  apartment.  Well  as  tbe  gallaut  old  man  enjo3^ed  the  so- 
ciety of  a  3'ounger  generation,  and  welcome  as  he  was  to  it  by 
right  of  his  grand  intellect,  his  unquenched  S23irits,  and  his 
high  renown,  he  had  not  the  heart  for  it  now;  he  felt,  vaguely 
and  bitterl}^  that  the  cloudless  sunshine  of  fortune  would  soon 
or  late  desert  the  last  Chandos  left  to  Clarencieux. 

Chandos  himself  that  night  smoked  his  favorite  rose-water 
narghile  in  the  smoking-room,  then  sat  down  with  Phihppe 
d'Orviile  to  ecarte,  closely  contested,  costly,  and  washed,  now 
and  then,  with  iced  sherbet.  They  played  while  everybody 
else  slept;  then,  as  D'Orviile  went  to  bed,  Chandos  instead 
let  himself  out  by  a  side  door  that  o^Dened  into  the  rose-gar- 
dens, and  walked  alone  into  the  sunny,  silent  morning,  with 
no  other  companion  than  Beau  Sire. 

With  the  temper  of  a  voluptuary  and  the  habits  of  a  man  of 
the  world,  there  was  blended  in  him  as  strong  a  love  of  nature 
and  of  all  the  beauty  of  forest  and  moor-land,  of  the  change  of 
the  seasons,  and  of  the  floating  glories  of  the  clouds,  as  the 
purest  of  the  Lakists  ever  felt.  In  truth,  he  was  many  men 
in  one,  and  to  the  apparent  inconsistency  it  produced  in  his 
character  were  due  both  the  versatility  of  his  talents  and  the 
scope  of  his  sympathies.  His  i^enetratiou  was  often  at  fault; 
he  thought  too  well  of  men,  and  judged  them  too  carelessly; 
but  his  sympathies  were  invariably  catholic  and  true;  he 
understood  what  others  felt  with  an  unerring  surety  of  jjercep- 
tion — a  quality  that  invariably  begets  attachment,  a  quality 
that,  in  its  highest  development,  produces  genius. 

He  walked  far,  spending  two  hours  in  the  forest  and  on  the 
shore.  The  flight  of  a  flock  of  sea-swallows,  the  toss  of  the 
surf  on  the  yellow  sands,  the  rolling  in  of  the  great  curled 
waves,  the  morning  life  of  the  woodlands,  the  nest-song  of  the 
thrushes,  the  poise  of  a  blue-warbler  above  a  river-plant,  the 
circling  sweep  of  an  osprey  in  the  air,  all  had  their  charm  to 
him;  not  one  of  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  spring-day  was 
indifferent  to  him  or  unnoted  by  him.     He  loved  to  lay  high 


CHANDOS.  175 

prices  on  the  cards  ia  the  excitemeut  of  a  gami'ng-room,  and 
he  loved  to  lead  the  wit  and  wildness  of  a  sparkhng,  reckless 
Paris  night;  bub  none  the  less  did  he  love  to  stand  :ind  loolc 
over  the  gray,  calm  expanse  of  a  limitless  sea,  none  the  less 
did  he  love  to  listen  to  the  laugh  of  a  west  wind  through  tho 
endless  aisles  of  a  forest. 

He  strolled  till  past  noon  through  his  lands  with  the  re- 
triever alone  beside  him,  then  he  re-entered  the  gardens  by  the 
same  gate  by  which  he  had  left  them.  In  them  he  met,  alone 
also.  La  Vivarol.  He  would  very  willingly  have  avoided  the 
meeting.  He  knew  how  inexorable  a  tyrant  the  fair  countess 
had  been:  it  was  with  difficulty  that  he  had  loosened  her  fetters 
at  all,  and  the  escape  he  had  made  had,  as  he  was  well  aware, 
never  been  pardoned  him.  Of  a  scene,  of  anything  approarh- 
jng  reproaches,  recrimination  or  a  quarrel,  Ohandos  had  m(>re 
than  the  common  horror;  it  was  one  of  the  frailties  of  his  uat- 
are  to  do  anything  on  tbe  face  of  the  earth  to  avoid  a  ''  mau- 
vais  quart  d'heure;"  and  now  his  conscience  told  him  that  he 
could  scarcely  cotnplain  if  he  had  to  endure  one,  even  if  ma- 
dame  v/ere  unaware  of  the  lengths  to  which  her  rival's  tri- 
umph extended.     He  advanced,  therefore,  with  a  misgivin^f, 

"  Ah,  mudame!  good-morning.  It  is  very  rarely  you  honor 
the  outer  world  so  early.'* 

The  countess  laughed  as  silvery  a  peal  as  that  rung  by  hei* 
toy-dog's  little  bells. 

"  No,  indeed.  The  dawn,  and  the  dew,  and  all  the  rest  of 
it  are  charming  in  eclogues  and  pastorals,  but  in  real  iile  they 
are — a  httle  damp!  but  to-day  I  did  not  sleep  very  well;  my 
novel  was  dull,  and  the  gardens  looked  tempting." 

"  Those  who  are  so  much  the  gainers  by  it  will  not  quarrel 
with  any  caprice  that  brings  them  to  you  earlier." 

La  Vivarol  laughed  again— a  little  contemptuously,  letting 
an  echo  of  sadness  steal  into  it.  This  brightest  Venus  Vic- 
trix  was  very  chary  of  her  sighs,  but  on  very  rare  occasions  ehe 
could  bo  mournful  with  an  etfect  no  other  ever  approached. 
,.  ''  ^^y  favorite  rose-gardens,"  she  said,  glancing  round  them. 
*'  Their  summer  beauty  is  not  yet  come,  (hough  it  is  very 
near.     7  shall  never  see  it." 

"Madame!  what  can  make  you  utter  so  cruel  a  prediction 
for  Clarencieux?" 

She  let  her  long  eyes,  dazzling  as  a  falcon's,  rest  on  him, 
humid  with  a  mist  that  he  couLl  almost  have  sworn  was  o\ 
tears. 

"  Clnit,  mon  ami!    A  uew  queeo  will  soon  reign  at  Clar- 


176  CHANDOS. 

encieux,  they  say;  can  you  pretend  that  I  should  be  welcome 
then?" 

There  was  a  repressed  melancholy  in  the  tone  more  touch- 
ing than  spoken  reproach.  Like  Trevenua,  she  had  long 
studied  and  traced  his  most  facile  and  most  accessible  weak- 
ness. She  knew  he  could  never  be  moved  by  recrimination;  she 
knew  he  could  be  wounded  in  an  instant  by  tenderness,  lie 
was  silent  a  moment,  startled  and  pained;  he  scarce  could  teil 
how  to  soothe  away  this  bitterness  to  her. 

"  Believe  me,"  he  said,  a  little  hurriedly,  "  whatever 
changes  Clarencieux  sees,  you  will  ever  be  welcomed  to  it  by 
me.'' 

"  And  do  you  think  that  with  these  '  changes  '  I  would 
come  to  it?"  She  spoke  with  a  proud  rebuke,  a  melancholy 
challenge,  turning  her  eyes  full  on  his.  Not  a  woman  living 
knew  so  well  how  to  place  a  man  in  a  wrong  position,  and 
close  all  gates  of  escape  upon  him,  as  Heloise  de  la  Vivurol. 
Chan d OS  felt  inconstant  and  cruel— felt  as  she  chose  that  he 
should  feel. 

"  However  that  be,"  she  murmured,  dreamily,  placing  him 
yet  further  and  further  at  his  disadvantage,  as  only  a  woman's 
tact  can  do,  "/wish  you  every  joy,  Ernest,  that  earth  can 
bring.  Ernest!  I  may  call  you  that  still  once  more;  the  name 
will  be  for  new  lips  in  the  future." 

The  tears  shone,  dimming  her  brilliant  eyes;  a  touching 
and  resigned  reproach  was  in  her  tone;  sadness  was  tenfold 
more  intense,  coming  for  once  in  its  rarity  upon  the  dazzling, 
victorious  face  of  the  sovereign  conqueror.  Chandos  felt 
guilty,  felt  repentant,  felt  everything  that  she  meant  he 
should  feel.  His  wiser  judgment  might  have  known  that  this 
was  but  the  perfection  of  acting;  but  she  did  not  let  his  judg- 
ment cotne  a  second  into  play;  she  moved  him  at  once  by  his 
heart  and  by  his  sympathies.  He  took  her  hand,  and  stooped 
toward  her. 

"  Keloise,  forgive  me.  I  deeply  regret — I  did  not  know — 
at  least,  if  ever — " 

He  was  about,  despite  all  his  consummate  tact  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  its  women,  to  do  so  rash  a  thing 
as  to  apologize  to  her  for  having  deserted  his  allegiance!  She 
btopj)ed  him  softly. 

"  Say  no  more;  the  past  is  past.  No  one  you  have  ever 
known  will  wish  you  happiness  as  I  shall  wish  it.  We  are 
friends  now,  and  ever  will  be.  Another  love  usurps  yen."  so 
be  it.  To  me,  at  least,  is  left  your  friendship  still.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  askj  Ernest?" 


CHANDOS.  171 

"  Too  much!    It  is  yours  forever. " 

He  spoke  warmly,  contrite,  and  surprised  that  she  had  loved 
him  so  well.  Siie  had  never  looked  more  lovely  than  in  tiiis 
sudden  descent  from  her  haughty  and  contemptuous  gayety  of 
sovereign  triumph  to  this  mournful  and  wistful  resignation. 
The  pledge  he  gave  her  was  one  that  he  would  never  break, 
for  it  had  been  won  from  him  in  a  moment  of  acute  self-re- 
proach, when  he  rebuked  himself  with  having  trifled  too  lightly 
w^ith  the  peace  of  one  who  truly  loved  him,  though  he  had 
wronged  her  by  too  long  deeming  that  no  real  love  could  lin- 
ger under  the  mocking  worldly  brilliance  of  her  careless  vic- 
tories. ''  I  never  thought  that  she  had  loved  me  so,"  he  mused, 
surprised  and  moved,  when  he  had  left  her.  She  had  led  him 
by  his  feelings,  and  he  had  neither  the  keenness  nor  the  sus- 
picion in  him  to  doubt  that  she  betrayed  him.  To  Chandos  it 
was  far  easier  to  think  that  he  had  done  a  woman  of  the  world 
wrong  by  thinking  her  too  heartless,  than  to  credit  that  she 
wronged  him  by  masking  a  bitter  passion  that  she  felt  and 
assuming  a  gentle  passion  she  did  not  feel.  It  was  true,  she 
loved  him — in  her  reading  of  the  word;  but  it  was  in  such  a 
reading  that  the  night  before,  seeing  her  English  rival's 
power,  she  had  set  her  delicate  teeth  together,  and  sworn,  in 
her  heart — 

"  I  will  have  my  vengeance!  If  it  be  twenty  years  hence,  I 
will  have  my  vengeance!" 

And  before  twenty  years  she  had  it. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  WATCHER  FOR  THE   FALL  OF  ILION. 

"  They  tell  me  the  Premier  has  pressed  on  you  again  the 
restoration  of  your  title?'' 

The  Queen  of  Lilies  spoke,  standing  under  those  very 
palms,  in  her  sister's  town  residence,  under  which  she  had 
stood  wlien  she  had  first  spoken  the  name  of  Chandos. 

"  Yes,  my  dearest,  he  has  done  so." 

'*  And  you  accept?" 

"No;  I  decHne." 

"Decline!"  A  dark  shadow  swept  over  her  fair,  serene 
brow.     "  Decline  the  peerage?     And  why?" 

"Why?     For  many  matters.     One,  that  what  was  robbed 

from  us  by  the  crown  I  will  not  take  from  the  crown  as  a  re- 

/creation.     The  last  marquis  laid  his  life  down  to  preserve  his 

honor.     Athens  would  have  given  him  a  statue  in  her  Altis: 


17S  CHANDOS. 

England,  characteristically,  gave  him  a  block  on  Tower  Hill. 
"We  have  never  condoned  his  judicial  murder/' 

''  Refuse  the  marquisate  to  gratify  the  manes  of  a  beheaded 
ancestor!  What  quixotism!" 

Chandos  looked  as  he  felt — annoyed;  he  was  used  to  be  de- 
ferred to,  and  the  women  he  had  loved  had  been  playfully  gen- 
tle even  in  their  most  imperious  tyrannies.  Besides,  a  deeper 
vexation  smote  him;  this  anxiety  for  his  rank  showed  that  hig' 
rank  usurped  her  thoughts. 

"  Quixotism  it  may  be;  such  as  it  is,  it  will  always  govern 
me;  and  I  should  have  hoped  one  who  loved  mo  would  strive 
to  understand  my  feelings,  as  I  would  strive  to  understand 
hers.'' 

He  spoke  gravely  and  gently;  but  she  saw  that  she  had 
made  a  wrong  move — that  he  was  both  pained  and  oifended. 

"  But  why?  tell  me  why,"  she  urged,  more  softly.  "  At- 
taindered  titles  have  been  restored  before  now.  Others  have 
thought  it  very  right." 

"  What  others  may  do  has  never  been  my  guide." 

"  I  know!"  The  world  followed  him;  she  would  not  have 
contradicted  him.  "But — forgive  me — I  can  not  see  your 
motive. " 

"  *  Forgive  '  is  no  word  between  us,  my  worshiped  one. 
But  to  tell  you  my  motives  I  should  have  to  tell  you  a  long 
story.  Suffice  it,  nothing — not  even  your  prayer — would  ever 
induce  me  to  be  made  Lord  Clarencieux." 

"  A  story?     Oh,  you  must  tell  it  me!" 

"  Why,  my  dearest?  We  have  a  story  of  our  own  far 
sweeter  than  any  chronicle." 

"  No,  no.  You  have  excited  me  now;  you  must  gratify 
my  curiosity. " 

She  spoke  caressingly,  but  in  her  heart  were  a  keen  irrita- 
tion and  mortification.  She  had  set  all  the  longing  of  her 
ambitious  life  upon  his  marquisate.  The  word  of  a  woman  is 
command  to  the  man  who  loves  her;  he  smiled,  looking  down 
on  her,  and  drawing  her  nearer  in  his  embrace. 

*'  You  know  the  life  and  the  death  of  the  last  lord? — it  is  a 
matter  of  history.  When  he  joined  Charles  Edward  at  Pres- 
ton, he  was  the  most  brilliant  man  of  his  time,  a  wit,  a  soldie; , 
a  poet,  a  bel  esprit,  the  friend  of  Philip]io  d'Orleans  and 
Richelieu,  the  courtliest  noble  of  his  age.  He  had  loved  many; 
but  he  loved  latest,  and  above  all,  a  duke's  daughter,  his  be- 
trothed wife.  When  he  was  flung  into  the  Tower,  as  ytni 
know,  they  offered  him  not  oidy  life,  but  highest  distinctions, 
if  be  would  betray  a  state  secret  known  to  be  in  his  possession. 


CHANDOS.  179 

You  are  aware  that  he  refused,  in  words  which  sent  the  Whig 
nobles  who  came  to  temjjt  him  out  of  his  presence  like  lashed 
hounds.  Yet  existence  was  unutterably  clear  to  him.  What 
think  you  the  woman  who  loved  him  did? — she,  a  court- 
beauty,  whom  hundreds  urged  to  forgetfulness  and  infidelity. 
All  she  craved  from  the  throne  was  permission  to  go  to  him  in 
his  captivity,  being  '  prouder,^  as  her  letters  jjhrase  it,  '  to 
share  his  doom  than  to  be  one  with  the  pomp  and  pride  of  em- 
perors.'  It  was  granted,  and  she  was  wedded  to  him  one  even- 
ing in  the  Beauchamp  Tower.  She  lived  with  him  there  four 
months,  while  his  trial  languished  on.  They  feared  to  murder 
him,  for  the  Chandos  were  very  powerful  then;  yet -they 
thirsted  like  wolves  for  the  great  chief's  blood.  His  name 
was  like  a  clarion  to  all  the  gentlemen  of  the  South.  Through 
all  those  months  she  never  left  him  for  one  hour,  nor  did  one 
word  ever  escape  her  lips  to  urge  him  to  purchase  life  at  loss 
of  honor.  They  took  him  from  her  side  to  the  scaffold,  one 
fair  spring  morning,  to  die,  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips,  and 
those  brief  words,  '  ^To?^^  est  perdu,  fors  Vhonneur !'  They 
say  that  from  the  radiance  of  scarcely  twenty  years  she 
changed  to  the  blanched  and  worn  decrepitude  of  extreme  age 
in  that  hour  of  agony  when  the  ax  fell  upon  the  neck  her 
arms  had  Vv^reathed  in  his  last  sleep.  The  son,  to  whom  she 
gave  birth  afterward,  grew  up  to  manhood,  the  estates  saved 
for  him  by  others^  intercession — never  by  her  own.  She  made 
him  swear  never  to  accept  the  restoration  of  his  father's  title, 
since  it  would  have  been  to  give  condonation  to  his  father's 
murderers.  He  kept  his  oath  inviolate;  and  it  has  been  passed 
on  from  generation  to  generation.  Now  you  understand  why 
I  will  not  accept  the  gift  of  my  attaindered  peerage." 

The  story  had  always  had  a  strong  and  touching  charm  for 
women.  Even  Heloise  de  la  Vivarol,  most  careless,  most 
heartless  of  young  coquettes,  had  listened  to  it,  looking  at  the 
Kneller  portrait,  with  tears  that  started  genuine  and  true  into 
her  falcon  eyes;  and  even  her  mother,  the  Princess  Lucille, 
that  weary,  hardened,  war-worn,  continental  Bohemian  of  the 
Blood,  had  heard  it  in  a  grave,  awed  silence,  and  had  turned 
slowly  away:  "  C'est  bicn  beau! — cet  amour  qui  est  plus  fort 
que  la  mort.     Je  ne  le  comprends  pas;  mais  c'est  beau!" 

Xow  the  chastely  trained  Englisli  beauty,  in  the  purity  and 
freshness  of  her  youth,  was  less  moved  by  it,  understood  it 
less,  than  the  calumny-proof  and  evilly-accused  Frenchwoman. 

She  listened,  she  smiled,  she  thanked  him;  but  the  history 
did  not  reach  her  heart.  She  felt,  moreover,  that  after  what 
he  had  now  said  it  would  bo  as  useless  to  urge  him  to  the  ac- 


180  CHANDOS. 

ceptance  of  the  Clareucieux  peerage  as  to  urge  on  him  soma 
actual  dishonor;  and  all  the  longing  of  her  soul  had  been  set 
U23on  that  proud  marquisate. 

He  saw  this,  yet  he  tried  not  to  see  it;  he  thrust  it  from 
him  with  a  pang.  From  a  woman  who  had  sought  him  for 
the  sake  of  the  rank  and  dignities  he  brought  her  he  would 
have  fled  as  from  a  pestilence,  let  it  cost  him  what  it  should; 
jet  he  had  wakened  passion  for  him  in  her  eyes,  he  had  felt 
her  lips  meet  his  in  lingering  caresses,  he  had  seen  her  face 
flush  and  her  heart  beat  at  his  words  or  in  his  embrace.  He 
believed  that  she  loved  him;  for  she  seemed  to  have  no  law,  no 
thought,  no  wish,  no  memory  on  earth,  save  him.  And  she 
was  very  beautiful:  heavier  sins  than  those  he  saw  in  her 
would  have  been  forgiven  and  forgotten  by  any  man  for  the 
sake  of  that  glory  of  youth  and  of  loveliness  which  had  ripened 
in  the  light  of  Eoman  suns  and  seemed  to  have  their  luster 
still  ujDon  it. 

Her  triumj^h,  too,  lent  her  a  fresh  s^^lendor.  The  eyes  of  a 
woman  are  never  so  soft  and  so  luminous  as  when  they  smile 
on  the  mortification  of  her  own  sex.  A  more  bitter  blow  had 
never  been  dealt  them  than  when  her  fair  friends  and  foes 
learned  that  she  had  subdued  one  whose  proverbial  incon- 
sistency had  so  long  made  his  captivity  hopeless;  and  in  the 
humiliated  jealousy,  the  defeated  exasperation,  which  rankled 
in  silence  and  wretchedness  beneath  the  congratulations  of  the 
dainty  ladies  of  rank  who  had  sought  him  for  themselves  or  for 
their  daughters  and  had  failed,  the  Queen  of  Lilies  found  one 
of  the  dearest  of  her  triumphs.  All  his  feminine  world  was  in 
a  terror  of  amaze,  of  indignation,  and  of  despair  when  the 
rumor  stole  among  them  that  the  idol  of  their  coteries  had 
been  won  by  the  portionless  daughter  of  Ivors.  They  could 
not  believe  it;  they  would  not  believe  it;  and  when  they  were 
compelled  to  believe  it  from  the  tongue  of  Lady  Chesterton, 
who  floated  about  with  the  coolest  ice  on  her  lips,  and  the 
warmest  exultation  in  her  heart,  that  ever  exasperated  a  score 
of  vanquished  acquaintance,  they  declared  it,  behind  her  back, 
the  most  disgraceful  intriguing  for  him,  and  began  to  find  out 
that  "  Lucrece  "  was  not  so  very  splendid  a  v/ork,  after  all. 

Demi-Monde  were  more  openly  in  revolt  and  more  frankly 
infuriated,  yet  comforted  themselves  more  speedily.  '*  //  nous 
reviendi^a  hientfd,"  laughed  Flora  de  I'Orme.  But  the  priest- 
esses and  vestals  of  the  temples  of  the  aristocratic  and  matri- 
monial Elis  had  no  such  consolation.  The  burnt-ofi'ering  of 
Clarencieux  and  its  appanages  could  only  be  sacrificed  once 
on  their  altars,  and  they  beheld  it  borne  away  by  this  unhon- 


CHANDOS.  181 

orecl  spoilei  w'dh.  an  exceeding  anguish,  the  greater  Ihat  it 
perforce  was  mute.  What  wreaths  of  aromatic  incense,  what 
oblations  of  sacrifice,  had  been  lavished  and  wasted ! 

There  was  not  a  single  person  of  Chandos's  acquaintance  to 
whom  the  prospect  of  his  marriage  was  not  bitterly  unwel- 
come—except, indeed,  Trevenna,  who  seemed  thoroughly  con- 
tent with  it;  at  which  other  men  wondered,  knowing  how 
valuable  a  place  Clarencieux  was  to  him,  and  how  much  bene- 
fit accrued  to  him  from  the  careless  and  gay  extravagance  of 
his  friend's  unwedded  life.  "But  then,"  they  remarked, 
"  Trevenna 's  always  such  a  good-natured  fellow!"  He  had 
thoroughly  earned  this  character.  Did  any  man  want  any- 
thing, from  a  cigar  to  a  hunting-mount,  from  a  seat  down  to 
Epsom  to  an  invitation  for  the  moors,  Trevenna  would  get  it 
for  him  with  the  most  obliging  good  nature — so  obliging,  that 
men  never  knew  or  noticed  tliat  the  cigars  were  Chandos's, 
that  the  mounts  were  out  of  his  stud,  that  the  drag  came  out 
of  his  stable-yard,  and  that  the  Highland  shootings  were  over 
his  heather  and  forest.  Good-natured  Trevenna  held  a  very 
safe  and  excellent  reputation.  His  talents  and  his  shrewdness 
secured  him  from  ever  incurring  that  contempt,  born  of 
familiarity,  which  good  nature  is  apt  to  beget;  and  it  was  a 
reputation,  as  he  considered,  that  kept  a  clever  man  "dark," 
and  secured  him  from  every  imputation  of  being  "  danger- 
ous "  or  ambitious,  better  than  anything.  Ko  one  ever  sus- 
pects an  embryo  Drusus  or  Catiline,  a  lurking  Gladstone  or 
Bismarck,  in  the  man  of  whom  everybody  says,  "  Most  obliging 
fellow  in  the  world;  always  do  you  a  turn;  uncommonly  good- 
natured!"  When  the  bhie-eyed,  golden-haired  proconsul 
cracked  his  jests  with  Eoscius,  and  lent  his  thousands  of 
sesterces  in  reckless  liberality,  and  offered  his  Cuman  villa  to 
his  boon-comrades,  and  played  the  witty  fool,  with  roses  on  his 
bright  locks,  through  the  hot  nights  of  roistering,  devil-may- 
care,  dead-drunk  Rome,  who  feared  or  foresaw  in  the  boon- 
companion  the  dread  conqueror  of  Aphrodite's  Temple,  the 
great  dictator  of  the  Optimates,  the  iron-handed  Retribution 
of  the  Marians? 

"  What  ever  possessed  you  to  jiut  that  fellow  into  Parlia- 
ment, Ernest?"  asked  the  Duke  of  Castlemaine,  in  the  win- 
dow of  White's,  a  fortnight  after  the  recess,  flinging  down  the 
paper,  in  which  a  quiet  paragrajoh  announced  the  retirement 
of  Sir  Jasper  Lyle  and  the  unopposed  nomination  and  electioa 
in  his  stead  of  the  nominee  of  Clarencieux,  John  Trevenna, 
now  M.  P. 

Chandos  raised  his  eyebrows  a  little. 


183  CHAND08. 

"  I  put  him  in  because  he  was  fitted  for  it:  not  a  common 
reason  for  elections,  I  admit/' 

The  duke  gave  a  low  growl  in  his  white  beard.  "  You  thiuk 
life  is  to  bo  dealt  with  by  bou  mots  aud  epigrams.  I  cau't  say 
the  Lower  House  has  much  to  thank  you  for  in  furuishing  ifc 
with  an  adventurer'/' 

"  It  has  much  to  thank  me  for  in  giving  it  a  talker  who  can 
be  logical  without  being  long-winded,  and  sparkling  without 
being  sliallow — though  possibly  it  won't  see  tlie  obligation.  It 
reveres  the  prosy,  and  venerates  the  ponderous." 

"And  if  you  had  a  little  of  its  tastes  you  would  gain  in 
safety  what  you  would  lose  in  brilliance.  You  set  too  much 
store  on  mere  talent,  Chandos. " 

"  I  err  in.  an  opposite  extreme  to  most  of  my  countrymen, 
then,  duke." 

"  Can  you  answer  one  without  a  repartee?"  muttered  his 
grace,  grandly  wrathful  at  an  election  from  which  he  had 
done  his  best  to  dissuade  his  favorite.  Prevent  it  he  could 
not;  he  had  no  local  influence  in  his  grandson's  county,  and 
the  little  sea-coast  borough  within  twenty  miles  of  Clarencieux 
had  almost  as  feudal  an  attachment  to  the  mere  name  of 
Chandos  as  his  peasantry  and  tenantry  on  the  estates.  The 
days  of  the  last  marquis  were  not  so  far  back  but  that  living 
men  could  remember  their  grandsires  relating  the  southern 
rallying  round  his  standard ;  and  the  great  fame  of  the  late 
minister  was  a  thing  beloved  and  honored  through  the  whole 
of  that  sea-board  as  a  thing  of  personal  and  imperishable  re- 
nown. 

"To  put  an  adventurer  like  that  fellow  in  the  House!" 
muttered  the  duke,  fiercely  recurring  to  a  pinch  of  his  fra- 
grant etrenne.     "  I  confess,  I  am  astonished  at  you,  Ernest. '' 

"  I  would  never  have  believed  it,"  chorused  his  son,  the 
^Marquis  of  Deloraine. 

"  1  did  not  believe  it,"  echoed  the  Earl  of  Pontifex.  "  When 
1  saw  the  paragraph  in  the  paper,  I  set  it  down  at  once  as  a 
'canard." 

"  Preposterous  I"  murmured  the  noble  lord,  who  held  the 
Foreign  portfolio,  from  behind  his  morning  paper. 

"  The  ruin  of  tlie  Constitution,"  sighed  a  colleague. 

Chandos  listened  a  little  impatiently  for  his  usual  temper, 
*nd  shrugged  his  shoulders  e /er  so  slightly. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  if  the  matter  disturb  you,  but  really  I  fail 
to  see  the  occasion.  I  confess,  it  seems  to  me  less  damaging 
to  put  a  man  into  the  Lower  House  who  has  every  promise  for 
Jhe  vocation,  except  money,  than  to  admit  so  manj,  as  is  now 


CHANDOS.  VS3 

the  cusfcom,  }'.3CP/ase  money  is  the  only  recommendation  they 
possess  !*' 

With  which  concise  retort  on  his  and  Trevenna's  censors, 
Chandos  absorbed  himself  in  a  new  novel.  The  duke,  who 
might  blame  one  whom  he  loved  more  dearly  than  any  other 
of  his  kith  and  kin  himself,  but  would  never  endure  to  hear 
him  blamed  elsewhere,  laughed,  and  turned  to  the  Foreign 
Secretary. 

"  Tell  your  rising  men  to  look  to  their  laurels,  Pendragon: 
this  fellow,  now  he  is  in,  will  cut  some  work  out  for  them. 
'  Eh,  sirrah,  and  ye're  na  quiet,  I'll  send  ye  to  the  five  hun- 
dred kings  in  the  Lower  House:  I'se  warrant  they'll  tame  ye,* 
said  James  the  First  to  his  restive  charger.  I  don't  think 
there  will  ever  have  been  one  of  the  '  five  hundred  kings  more 
likely  to  reign  paramount,  some  way  or  other,  than  this  very 
outsider,  John  Trevenna." 

His  grace  was  a  world-wise  Nestor  of  all  councils  and  bat- 
tle-grounds, and,  despite  his  aristocratic  prejudices,  judged  the 
audacious  outsides  correctly. 

The  election  had  been  conducted  very  quietly;  there  had 
not  been  the  slightest  attempt  at  even  a  threatened  opposi- 
tion; as  Trevenna  said  himself,  he  "  took  a  walk  over." 
Chandos  was  the  idol  of  the  whole  country-side,  and,  for  the 
sake  of  his  great  father's  memory,  no  wish  of  his  would  have 
been  opposed  in  his  county.  He  proposed  the  new  member 
in  a  few  words,  which  sent  a  thrill  through  all  his  elder 
auditors;  for  the  voice  was  the  same  clear,  rich,  irresistible 
voice — essentially  the  voice  of  the  orator — which  tliey  had  used 
to  hear  as  Philip  Chandos's.  They  had  often  wished  and  be- 
sought him  to  represent  them  in  person;  but  he  knew  his  own 
character  better  than  they  knew  it,  and  had  invariably  de- 
clined. Without  any  murmur  they  took  the  candidate  he  jiro- 
posed  to  them.  The  only  persons  who  could  have  opposed  the 
Clarencieux  nominee,  on  the  score  of  the  Conservative  creed 
so  long  held  by  the  Clarencieux  house,  namely,  the  few  peoplo 
in  the  borough  who  loved  chaiige  or  studied  politics  enough  to 
be  Whig  (and  they  were  very  few),  Trevenna  himself  had  con- 
ciliated. That  part  of  his  canvassing  he  had  done  alone,  un- 
known indeed  to  Chandos;  and  it  was  a  study  in  itself,  the 
masterly  manner  in  which,  abstaining  from  any  avowal  of 
Darshampton  politics,  such  as  would  have  startled  out  of  their 
wits  the  old  Tory  burghers,  whose  only  creed  was  the  creed 
professed  at  Clarencieux,  he  still  managed  to  duie  his  few 
Whig  allies,  to  chat  with  them  in  inn-bars,  to  smoke  with 
them  cheerily  in  their  back  parlors  or  their  somber  ''  best 


1S4  CHAKDOS. 

rooms/*  to  win  tbem  all  over  to  a  man,  and  to  leave  Ihem 
with  the  profound  conviction  that  he  only  coalesced  with  their 
opponents  in  order  that  he  might  ultimately  advance  and  sup- 
port their  own  opinions.  Trevenna  was  a  capital  iDOsture- 
dancer  in  social  life,  and  here  achieved  the  proverbially  dan- 
gerous feat  of  sitting  on  two  stools,  with  triumphant  address 
and  security. 

Still,  not  here  by  his  own  tact,  but  by  Chandos's  assistance 
and  friendship  alone  did  he  accomplish  the  commencing  am- 
bition of  his  life,  to  pass  uncliallenged  the  door-keeper  of  St. 
Stephen's  and  take  his  place  upon  the  benches  with  the  *'  five 
hundred  kings." 

Trevenna  was  in  no  sense  an  impressible  man,  and  assuredly 
not  an  imaginative  one;  he  would  have  strolled  through  the 
Birs  Nimrud  or  the  broken  columns  of  Jupiter  Ammon, 
with  the  sun  full  on  the  glories  of  the  ruined  temples,  and 
would  have  cracked  a  ginger-beer  bottle  and  wished  for  a 
''Punch;"  he  would  have  stood  in  St.  Peter's,  in  the  gloom 
of  the  Crucifixion-day,  while  the  "  Miserere  "  wailed  through 
the  hush  and  the  twilight,  and  would  have  amused  himself 
like  a  school-boy  with  letting  off  a  buach  of  crackers  undetect- 
ed, to  bang  and  sputter  on  the  solemn  silence;  he  was  essen- 
tially a  "  realist,'' to  use  the  jargon  of  the  schools,  and  a  very 
jovial  realist  too.  Yet  even  he,  little  given  to  being  touched 
or  impressed  as  he  was,  felt  a  certain  proud  thrill  run  through 
him,  a  certain  hushed  earnestness  fall  for  a  moment  on  him, 
as  he  first  walked  down  the  House  and  took  his  j)]ace  in  the 
assembly  that  John  Eliot  sufEered  for,  and  every  tyranny  since 
has  feared. 

As  he  seated  himself  in  the  Commons,  men  noted  that  he 
was  unusually  quiet;  some  thought  that  this  town-gossip,  this 
dinner-wit,  this  idler  of  the  Park  and  clubs,  was  conscious  of 
being  out  of  his  element,  and  felt  his  own  superficial  cleverness 
useless  and  frivolous  in  their  great  congress;  one  or  two 
thought,  noting  the  clear  keenness  of  the  eye,  the  meaning  of 
the  well-built  brow,  and  the  bright  indomitable  firmness  of 
the  lips,  that  he  might  be  rather,  on  the  contrary,  measuring 
and  maturing  his  strength  against  the  future;  and  these  were 
the  deeper,  surer-sighted  of  his  observers. 

Yet  even  these  could  not  guess  that,  as  he  entered  the  Lower 
House,  Trevenna's  first  glance  went  to  the  well-known  jilace 
where  the  majestic  stature  and  the  grand  bearing  of  the  fa- 
mous minister,  Philip  Chandos,  had  been  wont  to  rise  in  all  its 
dignity  to  quell  a  tumultuous  opposition,  or  to  lead  a  patriot's 
movement  for  the  honor  and  in  the  name  of  England;  and  his 


CHANDOS.  185 

first  thought  wag,  '^  Monseigneur,  here  am  I  at  last  in  your 
own  throne-room,  where  you  reigned  and  ruled  so  long.  Ah! 
I  may  even  hold  your  scepter  some  day,  when  your  brilliant 
son  lias  dierl  in  shame  and  exile  and  the  very  place  of  his  grave 
been  forgotten." 

So,  quietly  and  unostentatiously,  with  good  taste,  as  even 
those  who  begrudged  him  the  elevation  were  constrained  to 
admit,  not  altering  his  manner  nor  his  mood  because  he  had 
gained  this  social  status,  giving  men  no  touch,  as  yet,  of  his 
quality  and  his  powers,  training  himself  wisely,  sedulously, 
and  well,  and  caring  little  to  be  noted  at  present  for  anything 
beyond  his  punctual  and  steady  attendance  at  the  House,  Tre- 
venna  entered  on  his  parliamentary  career. 

At  the  same  time  with  his  own,  a  very  different  ambition 
and  aspiration  v;ere  forwarded  and  fructified  by  Chandos. 

The  opera  "  Ariadne  in  Naxos  "  was  completed,  and  after 
Easter,  through  his  influence,  and  chiefly,  indeed,  at  his  ex- 
pense, was  to  be  produced  with  every  magnificence  in  the 
presentation,  and  every  assistance  in  the  artists,  that  could  be 
procured  at  any  cost.  On  it  hung  the  very  life  and  soul  of  the 
musician  LuUi.  The  idealic  ambition  of  the  French  cripple 
was  as  intense  in  its  absorption  of  him  as  Trevenna's  realistic 
ambitions  were  of  him;  each  was  literally  and  equally  gov- 
erned by  ambition:  the  difference  was  that  one  worshiped  Art, 
the  other  only  coveted  Success.  Lulli  would  have  expired  in 
rapture  if,  perishing  in  want  and  misery,  he  could  have  known 
that  the  world  would  treasure  his  works;  Trevenna  would  not 
have  given  a  rush  for  a  fame  that  should  have  excelled  Csesar's, 
Aristides's  or  St.  Paul's,  if  he  had  not  dined  well  and  drank 
well  while  he  lived.  Dreaming  in  his  solitary  room,  the  vis- 
ionary, whose  infirmities  shut  him  out  from  every  joy  and  hope 
that  filled  the  lives  of  his  fellow-men,  had  created  things  as 
glorious  as  ever  issued  from  the  thoughts  of  Mozart  or  of 
Meyerbeer.  In  self-reliance  most  helpless,  among  men  weak 
as  an  ailing  child,  so  ignorant  of  all  worldly  ways  and  wisdom 
that  an  infant  of  six  years  might  have  laughed  him  to  scorn, 
Lulli  in  his  own  domain  was  a  king,  and  from  the  twilight  of 
the  aching  brain,  which  looked  with  so  touching  a  pathos,  with 
so  bewildered  a  pain,  out  of  the  dreamy  depths  of  his  sad  eyes, 
music  had  risen  in  its  grandest  incarnations,  poems  of  eternal 
meaning  had  been  garnered,  beauty  that  would  haunt  a  listen- 
ing world  and  stir  it  from  its  sloth  into  a  pang  of  some  sub- 
iimer  thonght  than  daily  toil  for  greed  and  gain,  had  been 
born  in  supreme  perfection. 

When  will  men  learn  to  know  that  the  pDWer  of  genius,  and 


186  CHANDOS. 

the  human  shell  ia  which  it  chances  to  be  harbored,  are  as  dis- 
tinct as  is  the  diamond  from  'the  quartz-bed  in  which  they 
l3nd  it? 

Tlie  '*  Ariadne  '*  was  the  crown  of  Lulli's  life;  it  was  the 
first-born  of  liis  brain,  the  darling  of  his  thoughts,  the  fruit  of 
many  a  long  summer  day  and  winter  night,  given  in  untiring 
love  to  the  work  of  its  creation.  By  it  the  world  was  to  decide 
whether  this  cripple's  dream  of  fame  was  vain  as  "  the  desire 
cf  the  moth  for  the  star,''  or  whether,  when  his  existence  had 
passed  away  from  the  patience  and  the  pain  of  its  daily  being, 
the  legacy  he  left  would  be  upon  the  lips  and  in  the  hearts  of 
thousands,  with  the  legacies  of  the  great  masters. 

The  day  approaches  at  last  for  the  trial — scarcely  three 
weeks  since  Ohandos  had  bartered  all  the  liberty  of  his  future 
in  one  caress  among  the  spring-wealth  of  the  violets.  Was  it 
well  lost?  He  thrust  the  question  from  him  unanswered,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  the  sway  of  his  new  passion  um-esistiug. 
He  had  never  known  sorrow;  how  could  he  well  know  fear? 
He  lived  in  a  ceaselessly  changing  succession  of  amusements, 
in  which  tliere  was  no  pause  for  doubt,  no  moment  for  fore- 
boding; he  only  felt  that  she  beguiled  him  more  with  every 
glance  her  eyes  gave  his;  he  was  only  conscious  of  the  impa- 
tience of  a  love  which  every  hour  that  kept  them  severed  heat- 
ed and  enhaiiced.  Now  and  then,  in  truth,  he  felt  as  he  had 
felt  at  Clarencieux — that  he  was  not  loved  as  he  loved;  now 
and  then  the  serenity  of  her  nature  chilled  and  chafed  the 
fervor  and  the  passion  of  his  own;  but  the  time  was  brief. 
They  met  in  the  j^auses  of  pleasures  which  banished  thought 
from  him;  and  the  touch  of  his  kiss,  the  eagerness  of  his  pray- 
ers, the  impassioned  warmth  of  his  worship,  woke  the  sem- 
blance, if  not  the  reality,  of  response  in  her.  Ko  woman 
could  have  had  his  eyes  look  into  hers  and  have  remained  cold 
-to  him.  The  only  thing  that  ever  rankled  in  his  heart,  and 
touched  him  at  times  with  a  pang  of  dread  and  almost  of  aver- 
sion, was  the  intensity  of  the  disappointment  she  could  not 
disguise  at  his  refusal  of  the  peerage  offered  him.  As  often  as 
she  could  venture  (for,  devoted  as  he  was  to  her,  and  infinitely 
gentle  as  was  his  manner  to  all  women,  and  above  all  to  her, 
she  felt  that  this  was  a  point  on  which  he  would  not  endure 
pressure),  the  Lily  Queen  recurred  to  the  rejection  of  the  Clar- 
encieux marquisate,  and  showed  herself  unreconciled  either 
by  his  wiih  or  by  his  history  to  the  loss  of  that  splendid  coro- 
net. It  was  subtlely  done,  with  feminine  grace  and  tact,  and 
with  the  higii-bred  delicacy  which  Lady  Valencia  could  no 
more  have  departed  from  than  the  antelope  could  lose  its  ele- 


CHAKDOS.  187 

gance;  but  tlie  thought  was  ever  there  with  her,  how  to  sur- 
mount the  invincible  objection  M'hich  alone,  through  motives 
as  they  seemed  to  her  of  such  sheer  quixotism,  stood  between 
her  and  the  jjrotfered  title;  and  he  felt,  better  than  he  could 
have  defined,  the  predominance  which  his  rank,  his  wealth, 
and  his  fashion  held  with  her,  far  over  his  love  and  her  own. 
JSjow  and  then  he  felt  this  so  strongly  that  a  passionate  regret 
seized  him  for  the  fatal  opportunity  which  had  led  him  away 
to  resign  his  fate  and  future  to  her;  but — he  loved;  he  had 
never  been  overtaken  by  calamity;  he  was  of  a  nature  on  which 
presentiment  could  assume  no  hold;  he  flung  the  fear  off  him, 
and  forgot  it,  stooping  to  take  the  soft  touch  of  her  lips. 

"  I  suppose  before  long,  Trevenua,  you  will  renounce  my 
exchequer-chancellorship  and  begin  to  prepare  yourself  for  the 
nation's?"  laughed  Chandos,  the  evening  before  that  on  which 
the  "  Ariadne  in  Naxos  ^'  was  to  be  presented.  "  I  can  not 
hope  to  keep  you  as  my  financier  now  that  you  have  parlia- 
mentary affairs  in  earnest  to  work  at:  still,  you  must  give  me 
notice  when  you  mean  to  resign.  The  vacancy  will  be  hard 
to  fill." 

Trevenna  laughed  also. 

"I  confess,  I  pity  my  successor,  as  far  as  finances  go: 
though  it  is  a  very  good  office  for  perquisites,  it  is  something 
tremendous  for  expenditure.  By  the  way,  have  you  any  idea 
what  you  do  spend,  Chandos?" 

Chandos  carelessly  shook  together  the  diamonds  on  a  fancy- 
dress  as  he  made  his  toilet  for  a  fancy-ball  at  the  Princess 
Anna  Miraflora's,  standing  in  his  dressing-room,  while  Tre- 
venna, after  dining,  as  was  often  his  wont,  off  Dubosc's  mas- 
terpieces all  by  himself,  while  his  host  was  dining  at  the  Aus- 
trian Embassy,  chatted  with  him  now  before  the  one  went  to 
his  bal  costume  at  the  princess's  and  the  other  to  look  on  at 
the  political  costuming  and  posturing  of  a  debate, 

"  An  idea  of  what  I  spend?  jS'o.  I  always  tell  you,  know= 
ing  the  price  of  things  spoils  them. " 

"  But  not  knowing  the  price  of  them  may  chance  to  spoil 
yoii. " 

Chandos  laughed. 

"  Tres-cher,  I  am  spoiled — have  been  ever  since  the  great 
ladies  gave  me  bonbons  when  I  was  two  years  old.  I  don't 
deny  it;  but  then  it's  very  pleasant." 

"  Very,  no  doubt.  1  never  tried  it.  But  in  sober  serious- 
ness, Ernest,  do  you  guess  what  your  exj)cnses  are?" 

*'  '  Sober  seriousness!'  AVhat  an  invocation!  Decidedly  the 
House  is  disagreeing  with  you,  Trevenna,  and  you  are  imbib- 


188  CHANDOS. 

ing  its  professional  dullness.  Give  tlie  benches  your  estimates, 
please;  don't  try  my  patience  witli  them.  By  the  way,  though, 
you  are  my  finance-minister  still:  will  you  tell  my  lawyer  to 
draw  up  Lady  Valencia's  settlements  immediately,  and  see  to 
the  matter  altogether  yourself  for  me?" 

"  With  2:)leasure.     AYhat  instructions — " 

"That  is  just  the  point!  Save  my  having  to  give  any. 
Meet  Chess  to-morrow,  and  do  whatever  he  wishes.  I  only 
give  you  one  injunction,"  added  Chandos,  dropping  his  voice 
so  that  his  attendants  could  not  hear;  "  arrruge  them  so  that 
Lady  Valencia  can  never  feel  she  has  not  brought  me  a  fort- 
nne  as  large  as  my  own,  and  dra^  them  up  as  you  might  have 
drawn  them  for  a  jorincess  in  her  own  right." 

"As  I  should  have  done  if  you  had  followed  the  duke's 
counsels.  But,  as  fi)r  these  settlements,  I  slioald  be  glad  of  a 
little  graver  talk  with  you.     Can  you  not  stop  half  an  hour?" 

"I!  I  am  fearfully  late  as  it  is;  and  I  have  jjromised  Prin- 
cess Anna  to  be  in  time  for  the  Louis  Quinze  quadrille.  Be- 
sides, I  know  what  your  graver  talk  means.  My  dear  fellow, 
go  in  for  supply,  and  attend  committees,  if  such  be  your  taste; 
but,  for  pity's  sake,  spare  me  hgalities  and  finance.  Settle 
what  thci/  wish  upon  her;  I  can  not  give  you  a  wider  margin." 

"  Wide  enough!"  said  Trevenna,  grimly.  "  I  wonder  what 
would  be  left  you  if  my  Lady  Chess  filled  it  up!  But  that  is 
not  all,  Chandos.     Indeed — " 

"Indeed,  the  'all,'  then,  must  wait  for  abetter  season," 
laughed  Chandos,  shaking  the  jeweled  hilt  of  his  rapier  into 
its  place:  he  was  dressed  as  the  Due  de  Eichelieu;  while  the 
Queen  of  Lilies  would  represent  the  Duchesse  de  Berry. 
"  The  princess  would  never  speak  to  me  again  if  I  were  to 
ruin  her  tjuadrille  by  my  absence.  Good-bye,  my  dear  fellow; 
and  don't  learn  gravity  from  St.  Stephen's:  I  am  sure  you 
see  a  perpetual  comedy  there." 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  as  he  swept  out  of  the  dressing- 
chamber,  with  the  Clarencieux  diamonds  glittering  at  every 
point  on  the  lace  and  embroidery,  the  black  velvet  and  azure 
silk,  the  gold  and  the  silver,  of  his  dress  of  the  Bourbon  court. 

"  Go  to  your  last  night,  monseigneur,"  he  thought.  "A 
week,  and  those  diamonds  will  be  for  sale.  You  want  settle- 
ments: well,  you  shall  have  them.  The  pear  is  ripe;  it  shall 
fall.  Take  a  reprieve  for  to-night;  nothing  loses  by  anticipa- 
tion, Tea  years!— a  long  time.  On  my  life,  I  feel  rather 
like  the  watcher  who  looked  out  from  his  watch-tower  through 
a  whole  decade  to  catch  the  first  red  light  of  the  leaping 
flames.     Tea  years! — a  long  time;  but  Troy  fell  at  last." 


CHANDOS.  189 

"With  which  memory  of  the  days  of  his  school-desk  hex- 
ameters, Trevenua  sauntered  out  through  the  hixurious  sleep- 
ing-chambers, past  the  waiting  valets,  and  down  the  staircase 
to  his  night-cab,  and  drove  on  to  the  House,  where  he  had 
already  been  in  attendance  from  four  to  eight,  and  where  there 
was  a  protracted  though  not  important  after-dinner  debate. 

Before  he  went  to  the  body  of  the  House,  however,  he  turned 
a  moment  into  the  library,  and  wrote  a  little  note,  which  he 
sent  out  to  his  groom  to  post. 

It  was  addressed  to  Ignatius  Mathias,  and  was  condensed 
in  one  word: 

*'Act.'' 


BOOK  THE  THIRD. 

II  avait  joui  de  son  rgve  insense; 
Du  trone  et  de  la  gloire  il  savait  le  mensonge, 
n  avait  vu  de  pres  ce  que  c'est  uu  tel  songe, 
Et  quel  est  le  neant  d'un  avenir  passe. 

Victor  Hu&o. 


L'honneurparle;  il  sufflt. 


Racine. 


CHAPTER   I. 

"  SPES  ET  FORTUNA  VALETE. " 

*'CoME  early  to-morrow,'^  murmured  the  Queen  of  Lilies^ 
as  her  lover  led  her  to  her  carriage,  lifting  her  fair  eyes, 
lustrous  as  those  of  the  daughter  of  D^Orleans  she  personated. 

Chandos  stooped  his  head,  so  that  his  voice  in  its  soft  an- 
swer only  reached  her  ear. 

"Would  that  to-morrow  were  here,  or,  rather,  that  now 
we  did  not  parti'' 

If  he  had  ever  doubted  that  he  was  loved,  he  could  not  have 
doubted  it  now,  as  he  watched  the  warmth  that  flushed  Iior 
face,  the  light  over  which  her  lashes  drooped,  the  half  smile, 
half  sigh,  with  which  that  divine  blush  replied  to  him. 

The  costume-ball  had  been  magnificent  as  though  it  had 
been  given  in  the  Regency  age  it  celebrated,  and  the  Louis 
Quinze  cjuadrille  had  been  the  most  splendid  of  all  the  square 
dunces.     The  Richelieu  dress  excelled  all  others  in  the  costly 


190  CHANDOS. 

glitter  of  its  grace;  the  Clarencieux  diamonds  outshone  all 
others  there.  Eoyal  woman  flattered  him  on  "  Lucrece;''  the 
greatest  statesmen  of  the  day  pressed  on  him  the  restoration 
of  his  marquisate;  the  world  adored  him  as  it  had  ever  done, 
and  feminine  lips  breathed  him  his  most  delicate  and  most 
dulcet  incense.  The  night  lived  long  in  his  memory.  It 
was  the  last  of  his  reign — the  last  in  which  he  loved  the  world 
and  the  world  loved  him. 

It  was  late  when  the  guests  of  the  Itahan  princess  left  her 
imitation  of  the  fetes  of  Sceaux  and  of  Versailles;  the  long 
line  of  carriage-lamps  gHttered  far  down  to  the  right  and  left 
in  the  uncertain  light  of  an  early  summer  morning.  Among 
the  crowd  of  horses,  of  lackeys,  of  chasseurs,  and  of  police,  * 
few  wandering  night-birds  crept  in  under  the  wheels  and 
almost  under  the  hoofs,  and  stared  blankly  at  the  glimpse  of 
an  unknown  world  caught  through  the  crevices  of  the  awning, 
and  at  the  warmth  of  light  and  color  that  streamed  out  on 
them  from  the  opened  portals.  Among  them  a  boy,  of  such 
beauty  as  belongs  to  the  canvas  of  Spanish  painters  and  to  the 
eyes  of  Spanish  gaditani,  stole  noiselessly  near,  and,  looking 
on,  crouched,  almost  kneeling,  in  the  shadow  ot  the  portico. 
One  carriage  rolled  away;  another,  with  the  well-known  white- 
and-silver  liveries  of  Clarencieux,  took  its  p^ace;  the  name 
ran  along  the  line  of  servants;  the  lad  Agostino  leaned  eagerly 
forward.  Down  the  steps  of  the  entrance,  under  the  awning, 
Chandos  came — the  gas-light  shed  full  on  the  rich  colors  and 
the  gleaming  jewels  of  his  dress,  as  Eichelieu  himself  might 
have  come  leaving  the  gatherings  of  the  Palais  Eoyal.  So 
near  leaned  the  boy  that  the  gold  and  silk  of  the  sword-knot 
touched  his  hfted  forehead.  The  attendants  ordered  him 
sharply  off  the  pavement.  Chandos,  struck  by  the  look  upon 
his  face,  so  eager,  so  longing,  so  full  of  youth  and  misery, 
stopped  them,  and  paused  a  moment. 

My  poor  boy,"  he  said,  gently,  "do  you  want  anything 
with  me?     Surely  I  have  seen  your  face  before F" 

Agostino  gazed  up  at  him,  pale  to  the  lips,  and  with  an 
utter  abject  wretchedness  in  the  darkness  of  his  eyes.  He 
trembled  violently.  He  would  have  given  twenty  years  of  his 
dawning  life  to  have  found  courage  for  speech:  yet,  now  that 
the  opportunity  so  yearned  and  sought  for  came  to  him,  the 
cowardice  of  his  feminine  nature  held  him  paralyzed. 

"  Speak.  Do  not  be  afraid,"'  said  Chandos,  kindly.  "  If 
you  want  anything  from  me,  say  it  without  fear.'* 

The  boy's  lips  parted,  but  only  inarticulate  Spanish  words 
halted  upon  them;  the  dread  of  his  father's  forbiddance,  the 


CHANDOS.  191 

horror  of  his  English  task-master's  vengeance,  held  him  pov\-er- 

hiss  and  speechless. 

"Tliat'lad  suffers;  have  him  looked  to/' said  Chaudos, 
turning  to  the  footmen  nearest  him,  while  he  stooped  and 
touched  Agostino's  hand  with  some  gold.  "  Take  these;  and 
if  you  need  more  heli^,  come  to  my  house  in  the  morning.  I 
will  give  orders  for  your  admittance.     What  is  your  name?" 

"  Agostino  Mathias." 

The  voice  was  husky  and  scarcely  intelligible;  a  great  ter- 
ror—the  terror  of  his  tyrant — lay  upon  him;  yeb  the  strange 
sudden  loyalty  and  love  he  had  conceived  for  the  English 
stranger,  with  the  face  like  Guido  Eeni's  golden-haired  St. 
Michael,  whom  he  had  seen  among  the  vine-fields  of  the  Vega, 
looked  upward  longingly  and  piteously  from  his  eyes. 

"  I  shall  remember,"  said  Chandos,  as  he  stooped  nearer  and 
put  the  sovereign  or  two  that  he  had  with  him  against  the 
boy's  closed  hand.  "  So  much  wretchedness  in  one  so  young 
must  come,"  he  thought,  "  from  some  such  jDangs  of  want  and 
poverty  as  sent  Chatterton  and  Hegesippe  Moreau  to  their 
graves." 

But  Agostino  shuddered  from  the  touch  of  the  gold,  and 
shrunk  back  against  the  stone  of  the  portico. 

"  ISTot  your  money! — not  your  money!"  he  muttered,  inco- 
herently, in  his  Spanish  tongue,  while  he  cowered  away  as 
though  the  sovereigns  were  some  leprous  thing. 

Chandos  saw  the  gesture;  he  did  not  hear  the  murmured 
answer.  Ue  turned  and  dro^oped  the  pieces  in  the  hand  of  the 
servant  closest  to  him. 

"  That  poor  boy  can  be  scarcely,  I  fear,  in  his  right  mind. 
See  to  him,  will  you?"  he  said,  as  he  went  down  the  few  re- 
maining steps  and  entered  his  carriage,  v/hich  stopped  the 
way  of  others.  Agostino  looked  after  him  with  passionate 
wistf  ulness,  while  the  great  tears  gathered  and  brimmed  over  in 
his  eyes.  The  footman  touched  him  on  the  shoulder  and  ad- 
dressed him.  Like  one  roused  out  of  fever  and  lethargy, 
the  lad  started  and  looked  round,  then  wrenched  him-self  out 
of  the  hold  the  man  had  laid  on  him,  and  fled  like  a  frightened 
deer  down  into  the  darkness  of  the  street.  The  servant  let 
him  go,  and  slipped  the  sovereigns  in  his  waistcoat-pocket. 

"  lie's  that  uncommon  proud,  he  won't  know  new  'uns 
like  the  Earl  of  Clydesmore,"  mused  the  man,  wonderingly, 
of  him  by  whom  they  had  been  given;  "  and  j'et  he  is  always 
willin'  to  speak   to  such  helpless  street-trash  as  that!" 

Such  a  code  as  this,  which  could  show  a  hauteur  so  aristo- 
cratic to  the  2)lutocracy,  yet  show  a  sympathy  so  democratic  to 


192  CHANDOS. 

the  needs  of  youtli  aud  poverty,  was  a  social  anomaly  that 
Borely  perplexed  the  pawdered  functionary.  In  any  one  less 
fashionable,  less  famous,  and  less  proverbially  exclusive  than 
Chandos,  he  would  have  set  it  down,  without  a  second's  hesi- 
tation, as  evident  insanity.  Tlie  world  would  not  much  have 
differed  with  him. 

''  If  a  boy  who  calls  himself  Agostino  Mathias  come  here  to- 
morrow, receive  him,  and  let  me  know,"  said  Chaulos  to  his 
maitre  d'hotel,  as  he  passed  up  the  staircase  of  his  own  house. 

Tlie  quick  ear  of  elohn  Trevenna,  where  he  sat  below,  wait- 
ing in  the  library,  with  the  door  a  little  open,  caught  the  name, 
and  his  white  teeth  set  like  a  bull-dog's. 

"  Ah,  young  one,  curse  you!  you  try  that  gamer"  he 
thought.  "  You  will  find  out  what  it  is  to  rebel  against  me, 
with  a  convict's  chain  ready  for  your  mischievous  baby- 
hands." 

The  man  bowed  as  he  heard  Chandos's  command. 

"  I  will  be  very  careful  he  is  admitted,  sir.  I  beg  your 
pardon,  but  Mr.  Trevenna  bade  me  tell  you  he  is  waiting." 

Chandos  paused  in  astonishment. 

"  Mr.  Trevenna?  Why,  it  is  past  four  o'clock.  Is  Claren- 
cieux  burned  down,  that  he  comes  here  at  such  a  time?" 

"  I  believe  he  said,  sir,  his  business  was  urgent:  he  entreated 
to  see  you." 

'*  Inconsiderate  fellow  I  I  am  half  asleep,"  thought  Chan- 
dos, as  he  passed  up  the  stairs.  "  Well,  say  he  can  come  to 
me  for  ten  minutes — in  my  own  room." 

"  A  very  good  fellow,  a  very  clever  fellow,  but  a  man  with 
one  failing;  he  never  knows  when  he  is  de  trop,"  he  mused, 
as  he  went- on  into  his  own  chamber,  that  was  library,  atelier, 
smoking-room,  and  art-gallery,  all  in  one.  It  was  always 
ready  lighted,  and,  without  waiting  to  take  off  his  Eichelieu 
dress,  he  stood  against  the  mantel-j)iece,  striking  a  match  for 
a  cigarette,  and  thinking,  as  his  hand  caressed  the  eagerly 
lifted  head  of  the  dog.  Beau  Sire,  less  of  what  Trevenna  could 
need  him  for,  than  of  how  lovely  the  Daphne  looked  in  the 
mellow  gleam  of  the  Iiqht. 

"Who  would  care  loi  life  without  Art  and  Pleasure?"  he 
thought. 

The  handles  of  the  double  doors  turned  sharply;  the  massive 
fall  of  the  blue  velvet  amtre-vent  was  thrust  hastily  aside; 
Trevenna  entered.  The  retriever  dropped  "  down-charging  " 
with  a  fierce,  repressed  growl;  Chandos  looked  up,  and  laughed. 

"  Adieu  to  peace!  You  can't  open  a  door,  Trevenna,  with- 
out jarring  a  room.     What  can  possibly  briiig  you  here  at  this 


CHANDOS.  193 

time  in  the  morning?  Is  Olarencieux  burned,  a  racer  dead, 
my  Titians  stolen?  or,  what  is  it?" 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  for  disturbing  you,  my  dear  Chandos," 
returned  the  other,  with  more  gravity  tlian  had  ever  been  seen 
in  him  before;  ''but  it  is  very  imperative  that  I  should  tallc 
to  5'ou/' 

"  Talk  away,  then!"  rejoined  Chandos,  with  a  sigh  of  ennui 
and  resignation;  "  but,  for  Heaven's  sake,  shake  off  that  most 
unusual  and  unbecoming  solemnity.  Who  ever  would  have 
thought  a  single  week  of  St.  Stephen's  would  have  been 
enough  to  make  a  man  so  prosy?  Or  perhaps  it's  only  training 
for  future  '  office,'  is  it?" 

Treveuna  was  silent;  he  came  and  stood  on  the  hearth-rug, 
with  so  rare  and  grave  a  seriousness  ui^on  him  that  he  gave  no 
light  or  humorous  answer;  he  looked  at  his  host  where  he 
leaned  against  the  marble,  his  form,  in  the  Louis  Quinze  dress, 
thrown  out  against  the  background  of  the  blue  velvet  hangings 
of  this  favorite  chamber;  then  he  bent  his  eyes  downward  on 
the  carpet:  he  feared  they  might  betray  the  thirsty  exultation, 
the  eager  sleuth-hound  longing,  that  were  hidden  in  his  heart. 

"  Come,  Trevenna,"  said  Chandos,  in  some  surprise  and  a 
little  impatience;  "  silence  is  never  your  forte.  Say  what  you 
have  to  say." 

"  Well,  I'm  a  blunt  man,"  answered  his  friend,  as  with 
some  effort.  "  Plainly  and  briefly,  I'm  come  on  a  disagree- 
able errand." 

Chandos  shrugged  liis  shoulders. 

"  I'd  a  presentiment  of  that.  People  don't  stay  up  for 
one  on  pleasant  ones.     Apres  ?" 

"  Ap7'es?"  said  Trevenna,  with  something  of  his  old  ma- 
licious humor  gleaming  out  in  the  corners  of  his  mouth.  "  It 
IS  just  the  '  apres  '  that  I'm  come  to  talk  about.  You've  had 
a  comet-like  course,  mon  jjrince;  did  you  ever  speculate  how 
comets  end?" 

Chandos  looked  at  him  in  supreme  astonishment;  he  almost 
thought,  for  the  moment,  that  Treveuna's  habitual  sobriety 
had  given  way,  and  that  some  hot  wines  heated  his  fancies. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  with  a  touch  of  stronger  impa- 
tience, "  you  must  really  pardon  me,  but  if  you  only  keep  out 
of  bed  to  propose  me  astronomical  riddles,  I  must,  with  all 
courtesy,  bid  you  good-night.'* 

"  Monseigneur,  have  a  little  patience.     I  come  on  grave 

matters,  and  you  must  hear  them,"  said  Trevenna,  quietly. 

"  You  lock  annoyances  out  with  double  doors  in  this  chamber; 

but  I  fear,  do  what  you  will,  they  will  ferret  through  and  fol- 

7 


194  CHANDOS. 

low  you  at  last.  I  asked  you,  before  you  wane  to  your  fancy- 
ball,  if  you  kuew  at  what  rate  you  have  lived  and  are  living; 
I  ask  you,  now  you  have  come  back  from  it,  the  same  thing. '^ 

^'  And  I  give  you  the  same  answer:  I  do  not  know." 

"Shall  I  tell  you?" 

"  If  you  please." 

"  I  will,  then;  but  wait  one  moment.  You  are  perfectly 
happy,  Chandos?" 

Chandos  looked  at  him  again,  in  an  astonishment  not  un- 
mixed with  amusement. 

"I?  Perfectly!  I  don't  think  I  would  live  a  day  longer, 
if  I  were  not. " 

Trevenna  watched  him  as  he  spoke,  leaning  against  the 
marble,  with  the  deep  glow  of  color,  the  strewn  treasures  of 
art  and  wealth,  the  white  grace  of  the  statues,  and  the  intense 
hues  of  the  painted  ceiling  around  and  above.  In  the  court 
costume,  with  the  diamonds  flashing  through  the  lace  and  gold 
embroideries,  the  strong  resemblance  he  bore  to  the  last  mar- 
quis was  as  great  as  though  the  dead  man  lived  again.  Tre- 
venna watched  him,  recompensed  at  last  for  a  long  decade  of 
patient  tact,  for  a  life- time  of  bitter  envy,  of  gnawing  mortifi- 
cation, of  impotent  hate,  of  festering  jealousy — watched  him 
as  the  jungle-cheetah  watches  his  prey  before  the  final  spring. 
He  went  leisurely  about  his  work:  the  treasured  jircparation 
of  such  long  and  thirsty  toil  was  not  to  be  devoured  in  an  in- 
stant, but  tasted  slowly  in  its  wicked  sweetness,  drop  by  drop. 
He  changed  his  own  position  slightly  nearer;  his  features  wore 
a  gravity  such  as  became  the  matters  he  approached,  but  a 
quicker  or  a  more  suspicious  observer  than  the  man  who 
trusted  him  so  freely  might  have  noticed  that  in  the  glisten  of 
his  clear  bold  eyes  there  was  a  look  of  eager  expectation,  ami 
about  the  firm,  humorous  lines  of  his  lips  there  was  a  lurking 
triumph,  a  cynical,  malicious  relish. 

"  You  would  not  live  a  day,  if  your  fortunes  altered?  I  am 
sorry  to  hear  that;  for  the  world,  then,  may  lose  you  soon. 
We  must  take  those  pretty  ivory- handled  pistols  out  of  sight; 
for,  though  you  are  so  happy  now,  I  fear  you  will  not  be  so 
happy  in  the  future." 

Chandos  rose  from  the  easy  indolence  of  his  resting  attitude, 
and  looked  at  him,  with  a  new  light  rising  in  his  eyes~a  light 
of  anger  and  of  impatience  very  seldom  there. 

"Jesters  are  privileged  proverbially,"  he  said,  coldly; 
"  but  there  are  limits  to  their  allowance  when  their  jests  have 
no  wit  and  much  insolence.  If  you  have  anything  to  say,  say 
it  plainly,  and  make  an  end." 


CHANDOS.  195 

Trevenna's  words  had  angered  and  astonished,  him,  but  they 
had  in  no  sense  alarmed  him.  In  his  careless  peace  and  his 
total  ignorance  of  calamity,  their  meaning  could  not  possibly 
suggest  itself  ever  so  dimly. 

"  Tres  cher,''  replied  Trevenna,  with  an  irresistible  lapse 
into  his  habitual  manner — for,  though  the  man  was  a  foul 
traitor  and  an  unblushing  liar,  it  was  against  tlie  cynical  can- 
dor of  his  nature  to  be  a  hypocrite,  though  he  could  be  one 
with  great  effect  and  success  if  it  were  absolutely  needed — 
"  that  confounded  hauteur  of  you  thorough-breds  is  deuced 
provuking;  it  is,  indeed;  and  people  won't  put  up  with  it, 
perhaps,  quite  so  patiently  in  future.  As  for  saying  plainly 
what  I  have  to  say,  I  suppose  you  will  not  believe  me  if  I  tell 
you  that  your  expenditure  is,  and  has  been  for  many  years, 
about  quadruple  what  your  income  is?" 

Chandos  started,  some  faint  perception  of  the  destruction 
that  must  follow  such  a  course  arresting  even  his  careless  in- 
difference and  ignorance  on  all  things  financial.     The  next 
moment  he  smiled  contemptuously  at  the  thought. 
"  My  expenditure?     Impossible!" 

"  Only  too  possible,  unhappily.  Even  a  Chandos  of 
Clarencieux  can  not  live  like  an  emperor  with  impunity.  Roy- 
alties come  expensive,  mon  prince;  and  who  wears  the  purples 
must  pay  for  them.  Your  fortune  was  fine,  but  not  large 
enough  to  bear  such  a  strain  as  you  have  put  upon  it.  You 
have  no  notion,  you  say,  of  all  that  you  have  spent.  What 
comes  of  a  man's  not  knowing  the  rate  at  which  he  lives? 
Why,  that,  sooner  or  later,  the  last  rope-strand  gives  way,  and 
he  is — ruined. " 

The  word  fell  strangely  on  the  silence  of  that  tranquil 
chamber,  bringing,  like  the  stroke  of  death,  desolation  where 
all  was  peace. 

Yet  still  the  word  passed  by  him  whom  it  should  have 
warned;  his  confidence  was  too  secure,  his  carelessness  too  en- 
tire, his  possession  of  all  that  was  highest  and  richest  and  bright- 
est of  too  long  custom  for  the  first  jjresage  of  the  storm  to 
have  power  to  force  its  meaning  on  him. 

A  flush  of  amazed  anger  passed  over  his  face;  he  stood  erect 
upon  his  hearth  in  a  haughty  and  intolerant  annoyance. 

"Have  you  drunk  too  much,  or  are  you  mad?  This  sort 
of  fooling  passes  all  license.  If  you  indeed  know  what  you  are 
saying,  I  must  beg  you  to  leave  my  presence." 

Trevenna,  in  answer,  stood  in  a  firmer,  sturdier  attitude, 
with  his  feet  apart,  and  his  arms  folded  like  the  Napoleonic 
statuettes. 


196  CHANDOS. 

"I  am  ngithor  mad  nor  drunk,  and  I  am  not  fooling.  I 
wisb,  for  your  sake,  I  could  discover  it  were  a  nightmare  after 
two  dozen  o_ysters;  but  I  can't,  I  digest  everything,  and  I 
don't  dream!  Briefly,  Chandos,  I  must  tell  you  what  I  have 
staved  otf  j^erhaps  too  long;  but  I  shrunk  from  the  task.  I 
let  time  pass.  I  thought  you  might  marry  some  rich  or 
even  royal  bride,  whose  alliance  would  change  the  whule  aspect; 
but  your  bidding  me  arrange  the  settlements  for  Lady  Valen- 
cia compels  me  to  withhold  the  truth  no  longer  from  you. 
There  is  nothing  to  settle  on  her!" 

"  Nothing  to  settle  on  her?     What  can  you  mean?" 

Still  no  doubt,  no  prescience  of  the  truth  came  to  him.  He 
looked  at  Trevenna  with  a  wonder  in  which  some  disgust  and 
more  pity  were  mingled;  he  thought  that  the  strangeness  of 
his  sudden  mania  rose  from  some  unusual  indulgence  in  drink, 
that  filled  his  brain  with  these  singular,  distorted  fantasies. 

"  I  mean  what  I  say,  mouseigneur.  There  is  not  a  sou's 
worth — not  even  those  diamonds  that  glitter  so  bravely  on  your 
dainty  dress — that  is  free  to  go  to  her  dower.  Can  you  not 
understand  me  when  I  tell  you  that  you  have  lived  at  the  rate 
of  four  times  the  amount  of  your  annual  income?  What  his- 
tory does  that  simple  fact  suggest?  You.  must  be  financier 
enough  to  know  tltat?  Hang  it,  Chandos!  I  am  not  a  deep- 
feeling  man — I  don't  go  in  for  all  that,  as  you  know;  but  I 
wish  from  my  soul  that  I  could  spare  you,  or  that  some  other 
could  better  break  to  you  the  news  you  must  hear  to-night." 

Chandos  listened;  a  gray,  deadly  pallor  came  on  his  face, 
his  lips  grew  white,  his  heart  almost  ceased  to  beat;  the  first 
shadow  of  this  dim  horror  stole  on  him.  A  glimpse  of  its 
meaning  was  forced  at  length  upon  him;  he  had  heard  of 
such  fates  for  other  men. 

He  drew  his  breath  with  a  gasping  effort.  "  If  you  speak 
truth,  speak  out,"  he  said,  in  that  strange  and  deadly  calm- 
ness which  falls  upon  the  mind  and  senses  before  the  visitation 
of  some  great  calamity.  A  faint,  vague  sense  of  this  evil  ap- 
j^roaching  him  was  all  he  felt;  it  was  not  possible  that  it  could 
come  to  him  yet  more  fixedly  or  fully. 

"  I  speak  the  sad  and  sober  truth,"  returned  Trevenna, 
far  more  quietly  than  he  had  ever  spoken,  as  his  eyes  still  rest- 
ing on  the  Daphne  opposite,  as  though  to  guard  against  a  tell- 
tale flash  from  them  of  that  lustful  exultation  that  he  knew 
was  in  their  glance.  "  1  can't  speak  to  you  as  coyly  and  as 
delicately  as  your  patrician  friends  and  relatives  would  do. 
I'm  a  plain,  frank  man,  Chandos,  and  I've  the  very  devil's 
own  mischief-making  to  tell  you  of  now;  but,  believe  me  once 


CHANDOS.  197 

for  all,  it  costs  me  almost  as  much  to  tell  as  it  can  do  you  to 
hear.  There  is  no  good  in  beating  about  the  bush— no  good 
in  being  discursive  over  a  thing  so  horrible  as  this;  you  miist 
know  the  worst  at  once,  and  it  is  better,  perhaps,  told  with- 
out varnish  or  veil;  a  short  shrift  and  a  quick  death.  That  is 
truer  mercy,  after  all,  than  all  the  endless  preparation  your 
fellow-aristocrats  might  give  you.     Listen!" 

He  paused  a  moment,  as  though  that  which  he  had  to  bring 
bore  even  him  down  in  its  bitter  burden;  but  his  eyes  glanced 
swiftly  and  longingly  at  the  man  he  tortured :  he  loved  this 
protracted  torment.  Like  a  cat,  he  played  with  his  victim's 
misery  before  he  killed  him;  and  if  without  suspicion  he  could 
have  prolonged  it  through  hours  of  ignorance  and  dread,  he 
would  have  done  so  with  all  the  endless  patience  of  hate. 

"  Listen,^'  he  said,  more  softly;  "  as  I  have  said,  you  have 
long  lived — indeed,  I  think  since  your  majority — at  the  rate 
of  four  times  your  income.  You  have  kept  two  households  in 
England  nearly  such  as  princes  keep;  you  have  had  your 
Paris  hotel,  your  Turkish  palace;  you  have  lavished  money  on 
art,  like  another  Beckford;  you  have  spent  God  knows  what 
on  women;  you  have  given  entertainments  that  cost  you 
(though  you  never  asked  the  cost)  a  couple  of  thousand  a 
nightr  you  have  played  the  patron  to  every  starving  genius 
you  met:  in  a  word,  you  have  lived  like  a  king,  my  dear 
Ernest,  and  not  being  a  king,  but  only  an  English  gentleman, 
your  royalty  has  broken  down,  and  will,  I  fear,  end  in  a  very 
unavoidable  abdication.  In  a  word,  you  are  in  debt  to  an 
extent  I  hardly  dare  compute  to  you.  To  sell  everything  you 
possess  will  hardly  satisfy  your  claimants;  bill  discounters  and 
money-lenders  have  your  signature  in  their  hands,  and  will  call 
for  payment  without  mercy.  Briefly,  you  have  sold  your 
birthright  for  ten  years'  enjoyment,  and  you  now  are,  beyond 
all  hope  of  ransom,  irrevocably  and  most  utterly — rvined.'[ 

The  word  cut  down  again  upon  the  stillness  with  a  shrill, 
sharp,  pitiless  echo,  as  a  sword  cuts  down  through  the  air  be-' 
fore  it  falls  on  the  bowed  neck  of  the  doomed. 

Its  utterance  repaid  its  speaker  for  all  he  had  foregone,  for 
all  he  had  forborne,  for  every  slight  endured  in  silence' from 
the  world  he  hated,  for  every  benefit  taken  with  an  inward 
curse  from  the  man  he  hunted  down,  lie  loved  that  word 
80  well,  he  could  have  dinned  it  on  the  silence  in  incessant 
repetition,  hurling  down  with  it  the  brilliant  and  gracious 
life  he  had  so  long  envied  from  the  thrones  of  pleasure  and 
of  power  into  the  nethermost  darkness  of  a  hopeless  desolation, 

"Kuined!     1?" 


198  CHANDOS. 

Chandos  ochoeil  llie  word  hoarsely,  faintly,  scarcely  with 
any  comprelieusion  of  it,  as  a  man  suddenly  wakened  from  a 
deep,  sweet  slee])  to  learn  some  nnutterable  shame  or  misery 
that  has  befallen  hirn  repeats  the  phrase  that  tells  it,  mechan- 
ically and  without  sense.  The  agony  of  horror  that  gathered^ 
white  and  bewildered,  on  the  gallant  beauty  of  his  face  was 
in  as  ghastly  a  contrast  with  the  glittering  splendor  of  his 
dress  as  though  the  face  of  a  corj^se  gazed  out  from  tiie  laces 
and  jewels  of  a  gay  masquerade. 

"  Yes;  even  you,  my  brilliant  Lord  of  ClarencieusI'*  an= 
swered  the  friend  who  stood  upon  his  hearth;  and  with  the 
words  went  an  irrejjressible  snarl  and  sneer  of  triumph  and  of 
mockery  that  passed  him  unuoted  in  that  moment  of  breath- 
less, burning,  inconceivable  anguish.  "  Even  you!  Details 
you  will  learn  for  yourself  hereafter;  for  to-night  the  broad, 
brief  fact's  enough.  T  would  have  warned  you  long  ago,  if 
you  would  only  have  listened;  but  you  know  as  well  as  I  do 
you  would  never  hear  of  business,  never  think  of  money.  Be- 
sides, in  truth,  I  scarcely  thouglit  it  was  so  very,  so  hoi3elessly 
bad  as  it  seems  now  to  be.  I  suppose  your  marriage  with  a 
bride  who  has  no  dower  has  set  tlie  fellows  on:  they  are  hound- 
ing for  their  moneys  now  like  mad.  I  have  had  hard  work  to 
keep  them  even  from  arresting  you;  I  have,  upon  my  honor! 
To-night,  when  you  went  out  to  your  princess's  ball  with  all 
those  thousands  of  pounds'  worth  of  rose-diamonds  about  you, 
it  was  a  wonder,  on  my  life,  that  some  one  of  your  hungry 
creditors  didn't  stop  those  dainty  jewels.  You  shall  see  to- 
morrow that  I  tell  you  but  the  plain,  unvarnished  truth. 
You  are  so  deeply  involved  now,  Chandos,  that  I  doubt  if 
there  is  a  single  little  cabinet  picture  on  these  walls,  or  a  single 
rood  of  land  at  your  beloved  Clarencieux,  that  in  a  mouth's 
tiiL^e  you  will  call  your  own — " 

"  Stop! — oh,  my  God!  have  some  mercy!" 

The  words  broke  out  like  the  last  cry  wrung  from  one  driven 
to  the  extremity  of  physical  endurance — wrung  from  him  in 
the  abandonmen}  of  human  misery  against  all  strength  of  man- 
hood and  all  power  of  wilL  He  could  bear  no  more;  he  was 
stunned  and  blinded  like  a  man  struck  from  behind  him  a 
murderous  blow  upon  the  brain  which  blasts  his  sight  to  dark- 
ness. 

Euin! — it  had  no  meaning  for  him;  it  came  to  him  like 
some  dim,  shapeless,  devil-begotten  thing  that  had  no  form  or 
substance,  a  hideous  lemur  of  a  night's  delirious  dream. 

Trevenna  stood  by  and  watched  him;  his  hour  had  come  at 
last,  the  hour  which  paid  him  back  the  cankerous  evil,  the 


CHANDOS.  199 

relentless  toil,  the  unremitting  chase,  of  such  long,  wakeful, 
hungry  years.  Q'his  moment  had  been  hoarded  up  by  him  as 
a  miser  hoards  his  gold,  and  nov/,  in  its  full  seizure,  he  was  re- 
paid for  all  his  studied  craft,  for  all  his  fondly  nursed  revenge, 
for  all  his  unrehnquished  hatred— repaid  to  the  uttermost 
coin  by  every  gasped  breath  that  he  counted,  by  every  shiver 
of  the  voiceless  anguish  that  he  watched. 

He  did  not  heed  the  prayer  for  silence,  but  took  up  the 
broken  thread  of  his  discourse,  and  played  with  it  as  though 
loving  it  in  every  shape  and  ou  every  side. 

"  Your  property,  you  see,  was  fine,  no  doubt;  but  fine  prop- 
erties are  not  Monte  Cristo  caverns  of  exhaustless  wealth. 
Dipped  into,  they  will  waste.  You  have  eclipsed  princes,  and 
starred  through  all  Europe;  you  pay  now  for  the  pre-emin- 
ence. You  have  had  women's  love — no  toy  so  costly!  you  have 
had  the  great  world's  worship — no  clientela  so  expensive!  you 
have  been  a  dilettante,  a  lion,  a  leader  of  fashion,  a  man  of 
endless  pleasures — no  pursuits  take  so  much  gold!  You  have 
lived  in  such  a  style  that  you  would  have  run  through  mill- 
ions had  you  had  them;  and  you  had  not  one  million,  though 
you  had  a  noble  inheritance.  Of  course  you  possess  such 
quantities  of  pictures  and  statues,  and  all  that  kind  of  thing, 
and  your  estate  itself  is  such  an  untouched  mine,  that  there 
can  be  no  fear  of  your  personal  hberty  ever  being  endangered; 
but  I  am  grievously  afraid,  I  am  indeed,  that  you  will  be 
obliged  to  give  up  almost  everything — give  up  even  Claren- 
cieux!" 

The  words,  so  deftly  strung  together  to  goad  and  taunt  and 
add  misery  to  misery,' wound  their  pitiless  speech,  unchecked, 
with  all  the  fiendish  ingenuity  of  hatred  that  could  not  sate 
itself  enough  in  the  vastness  of  this  wreck  it  wrought. 

Chandos  heard  tbem,  yet  only  dimly  as  men  hear  in  whose 
cars  the  noise  of  great  sea-waves  is  surging.  He  raised  him- 
self erect,  rigid  in  an  unnatural  calm.  Years  of  age  and 
wretchedness  could  not  have  changed  his  face  as  this  brief  mo- 
ment had  changed  it;  its  radiance  and  it  splendor  had  died 
out  as  though  the  breath  of  death  had  passed  on  it;  its  ashen 
white  looked  ghastlier  beside  the  ball-room  gayety  of  his  dress, 
and  in  tbe  stillness  that  followed  the  loud,  slow,  labored 
beatings  of  his  heart  were  audible — each  throb  a  pang. 

•'  Y^ou  swear  that  this  is  truth?" 

His  voice  was  broken  and  strained,  like  the  voice  of  a  man 
just  arisen  from  a  bed  of  lengthened  sickness;  and  his  hot  lips 
had  parted  twice  before  words  came  to  them. 

"  To  the  uttermost  letter-" 


200  CHANDOS. 

Cliandos's  head  drooped  as  though  he  had  been  suddenly 
stabbed;  all  the  vigor  and  grace  and  jjerfection  of  his  frame 
seemed  to  wither  and  grow  old;  a  shudder,  such  as  the  limbs 
shiver  with  involuntarily  under  some  unendurable  bodily  tor- 
ment of  the  flames  or  of  the  knife,  shook  him  from  head  to 
foot. 

"  Clarencieux  lost!     Oh,  God!" 

The  words  died  in  his  throat — the  stifled  cry  of  a  vain  agony 
for  his  lost  birthright.  This  alone,  through  all  the  blindness 
and  the  stupor  of  misery  that  had  fallen  on  him,  rose  out  clear 
before  him  in  its  burniug  torture — the  passionate  yearning  of 
his  heart  toward  his  home. 

As  the  flare  of  a  torch  suddenly  shows  the  abyss  that  yawns 
beneath  the  traveler's  feet,  so  the  glare  and  the  shame  of  the 
sentence  he  heard  showed  him  the  bottomless  desolation  over 
which  he  stood.  He  was  wakened  from  his  dreamful  ease  to 
be  flung  face  to  face  with  an  absolute  despair.  For  the  mo- 
ment strength  gave  way,  manhood  was  shattered  down,  con- 
sciousness itself  could  keep  no  hold  on  life;  the  lights  of  the 
chamber  reeled  in  giddy  gyrations  round  him,  a  sound  like 
rushing  waters  beat  in  on  his  brain,  a  darkness  like  the  dark- 
ness of  death  fell  upon  him.  He  swayed  forward,  like  a 
drunken  man,  against  the  broad  marble  ledge  above  the 
hearth;  his  hands  instinctively  clinched  on  the  stone  as  the 
hands  of  those  sinking  to  their  grave  down  the  glassy  slope  of 
an  Alpine  mountain  clinch  on  the  ice-ridge  that  they  meet; 
his  head  sunk  on  his  arms,  the  suffocated  labor  of  each  breath 
panted  out  on  the  silence  like  a  death-spasm — at  one  stroke  he 
was  bereaved  of  all! 

His  torturer  looked  on.  Never  in  the  cells  of  the  Inquisition 
could  Franciscan  or  Dominican  have  watched  the  gradual 
wrenching  of  the  rack,  the  winding-out  of  the  strained  limbs 
till  they  broke,  the  wringing  and  bruising  and  slaying  of  the 
quivering  nerves  till  ihey  could  bear  no  more,  as  Trevenna 
watched  this  moral  torment,  this  assassination  of  joy  and 
honor,  peace  and  love  and  fame,  and  every  fair  thing  of  a 
gracious  world,  laid  desert  and  desolate  at  his  word.  He 
looked  on,  as  in  the  legends  of  the  early  Church  devils  looked 
on  at  the  impotent  despair  of  those  whose  souls  they  had  lured 
and  tempted  and  meshed  in  their  net  and  made  their  own. 
He  looked  on,  and  was  repaid. 

"  Chandos,"  he  said,  gravely,  almost  softly,  pouring  the 
last  drop  of  burning  oil  into  the  fresh  wound  his  stab  had  dealt 
— "  Chandos,  believe  me— from  my  soul  I  pit^  you!" 

He  had  studied  long  the  nature  of  the  man  now  in  his  power, 


CHANDOS.  20] 

and  lie  knew  the  keenest  sting  to  give.  Yet  for  once  his  greed 
erred  in  its  mark;  the  last  bolt  shortened  the  hour  of  his 
rich,  insatiate  enjoyment. 

It  roused  Chandos  as  the  bay  of  the  pack  rouses  the  dying 
stag  from  its  mortal  throes  to  stagger  up  and  drag  its  bleeding 
limbs  to  solitude,  where  it  can  die  alone.  It  j:»ierced  his 
stupefaction;  it  told  him  more  vyidely  than  all  other  words 
could  tell  how  mighty  was  his  fall,  how  utter  his  desolation. 

This  man  pitied  him!  He  raised  himself  with  sudden  force; 
the  pride  of  his  race  was  not  dead  in  him,  and  the  same  cour- 
age in  the  teeth  of  calamity,  which  had  sent  the  last  marquis 
with  a  smile  to  the  Tower  scaffold,  was  in  him  now  under  the 
lash  of  his  dependent's  mockery  of  compassion.  His  face 
was  strangely  and  terribly  calm,  but  a  premature  age  seemed 
to  have  withered  all  life  from  it;  his  lips  were  colorless,  and  on 
his  forehead  alone  the  dark  congested  blood  flushed  heavily, 
red  and  burning  as  in  the  heat  of  fever. 

"  If  this  be  the  truth,"  he  said,  hoarsely,  while  his  throat 
was  parched  and  almost  voiceless,  "  you  have  had  little  mercy 
in  the  telling!  Go;  take  the  town  your  story;  it  will  startle 
them.     Spare  more  of  it  to  mc !" 

The  words  were  spoken  with  a  tranquillity  more  horrible 
than  the  fiercest  outbreaks  of  dehrium  or  the  most  hopeless 
abandonment  of  vv'oe.  He  stood  as,  in  the  days  of  Philip  the 
Fair,  one  of  his  race  had  stood  to  be  bound  to  the  TemjDlars* 
pyre;  his  hand  was  clinched  on  the  marble  ledge,  and  every 
now  and  then  a  quick  shudder  ran  through  all  his  limbs, 
shaking  him  as  with  the  shudder  of  an  icy  cold;  but  his  eyes 
were  dr}^,  and  fronted  his  tormentor  with  a  look  under  which 
the  other  shrunk,  and  no  sign  or  sigh  of  pain  escaped  him. 

Trevenna  moved  slightly;  he  could  not  meet  the  gaze  of 
those  calm,  tearless  eyes,  from  whose  depths  there  looked  so 
wide  a  world  of  unuttered  reproach,  of  un uttered  agony. 

"  Chandos,  Chandos,  there  will  be  no  need  for  mc  to  tell 
the  town;  it  will  be  whispered  soon  enough!  Would  you  give^ 
the  task  to  your  debtor,  your  guest,  your  friend?  No!  There 
are  too  many  who  will  take  it  fast  enough.  Leave  it  to  the 
men  you  have  outrivaled  and  the  women  you  have  forsaken; 
those  are  the  glib  tongues  for  such  a  theme!  As  for  mci'cy 
in  the  telling,  what  mercy  can  the  man  show  who  has  to  bring 
his  death-warrant  to  another?  I  would  have  warned  you  long 
ago,  and  you  would  not  be  warned.  Is  it  my  fault  that  yon 
liave  wasted  your  jirincely  substance  and  are  a  beggar  now? 
Oh,  my  friend,  there  is  no  error  in  this  thing  save  your  own." 

He  toyed  too  long  with  the  theme  that  was  so  sweet  to  himj 


203  CHANDOS. 

he  counted  too  surely  on  the  endurance  of  the  man  he  lashed 
and  stung  and  stretched  upon  the  rack  of  his  subtle  mockery 
of  pity  and  of  symjoatliy;  there  was  a  latent  force  he  had  not 
known,  a  latent  ])assion  he  had  not  divined  in  the  pleasure- 
steeped  softness  of  his  victim's  nature. 

Chandos  gave  a  forward  gesture,  like  a  maddened  animal 
rising  to  its  spring;  he  did  not  reel,  or  stagger,  or  let  escape 
one  sign  of  the  anguish  within  him,  but  he  stood  there  upon 
his  desolated  hearth  erect,  brought  to  bay  as  the  deer  by  the 
sleuth-hounds,  livid  to  the  lips,  with  only  the  blood  burning 
like  fire  across  his  brow,  his  golden  hair  dashed  back  dis- 
ordered, his  eyes  proud  and  fearless  even  in  their  misery.  It 
was  no  longer  Alcibiades  amidst  the  gay  levity,  the  dreamy 
languor,  the  fragrant  rose-crowns,  and  the  laurel-wreathed 
amphor?e  of  the  revels  of  his  youth;  it  was  Alcibiades, 
grander  in  his  fall  than  in  his  reign,  facing  alone  the  dead 
cold  of  the  winter's  night  and  the  unsheathed  circle  of  his 
assassins'  steel,  until  they  cov/ed  and  fell  asunder  and  pierced 
him  with  dastard  surety  from  afar  off  with  the  arrows  of  the 
Bactrian  bows.  He  raised  his  right  hand  and  pointed  to  the 
door. 

"  If  you  are  man,  not  devil,  let  me  be!  Go!  I  command 
you!    Go!" 

Bold  though  they  were,  his  torturer's  eyes  could  not  meet  his; 
victorious  though  he  was,  Trevenna  dared  not  dispute  that 
bidding;  insatiate  though  his  greed  for  this  exhaustless  tri- 
umph would  still  have  been  for  hour  upon  hour,  he  was  forced 
to  obey  that  gesture  of  command.  Mastiff-like  both  in  cour- 
age and  ferocity,  he  was  still  driven  out  as  a  murderous  animal 
is  driven  out  by  the  will  it  reads  in  a  human  gaze.  He  longed 
to  linger  there  the  whole  night  through,  and  ring  every  change 
npon  that  note  of  ruin,  and  watch  every  spasm  of  the  over- 
burdened life,  and  turn  every  screw  and  wheel  in  that  rack  on 
which  he  stretched  his  friend.  But  he  dared  not;  he  felt  that 
he  must  leave  his  work  to  bear  its  fruit  and  harvest  of  misery 
imwatched;  he  knew  it  as  the  murderers  of  Alcibiades  knew 
that  none  could  come  near,  with  life,  to  the  menaced  danger 
and  the  mighty  woe  that  looked  unquailiug  on  tliem  from  the 
llaming  eyes  of  the  roused  Sybarite,  the  discrowned  idol,  the 
awakened  Epicurean,  called  out  in  the  dead  of  night  to  stand 
face  to  face  with  his  destruction.  The  hirelings  of  Pharna- 
bazus  slew  the  Greek;  Trevenna,  less  merciful,  left  the  living 
man  to  suffer. 

The  velvet  swept  down  behind  him,  the  door  closed,  and  he 
4rew  it  softly  after  him;  then  ho  paused  in  the  stillness  of  the 


CIIANDOS.  S03 

Oreaking  dawn  that  was  rising  on  all  the  sleeping  world  with- 
out, and  listened  with  an  expectancy  upon  his  face. 

On  the  silence  he  heard  a  heavy  crashing  fall,  like  the  fall 
of  a  stricken  tree;  then  all  was  still  with  the  stillness  of  the 
grave. 

He  smiled,  and  passed  onward,  through  the  second  door, 
and  down  the  corridor  and  staircase  of  the  house  that  had 
been  opened  to  him,  night  and  day,  with  a  hospitality  that  no 
claims  could  weary  and  no  exactions  chill,  and  went  out 
through  the  lighted  hall,  with  its  bloom  of  exotic  color  and  its 
richness  of  jasper  and  porphyry.  As  he  passed  the  statue  of 
the  great  minister  standing  there,  white  and  majestic,  amidst 
the  foliage  of  American  plants  and  the  glow  of  Eastern  flowers, 
he  looked  upward  to  the  sculptured  face  with  a  glance  of 
triumph,  of  achievement,  of  satisfied  revenge,  tliat  in  the  in- 
tensity of  its  evil  and  its  cruelty  was  almost  grand  by  the  sheer 
force  of  strength  and  purpose. 

"  Monseigneur,  monseigneur,"  he  murmured,  in  that 
thirsty  exultation,  flinging  his  victory  and  his  mockery  in  the 
face  of  the  lifeless  marble,  "  how  is  it  with  your  beloved  one 
nowf" 


CHAPTEE  II. 

**  TOUT  EST  PEEDU,    FOES   l'hON'KEUR.  " 

The  morning  sun  straying  fitfully  in  through  the  thick 
leafy  shades  and  trellised  creejjers  of  the  winter  garden  beyond, 
as  the  day  rose  high  and  bright  over  a  busy  waking  world, 
found  the  ruined  man  lying  where  he  had  fallen,  struck  down 
by  the  blow  that  had  beggared  him  of  all,  as  a  cedar  is  struck 
by  the  lightning.  He  lay  there  insensible  to  all  except  his 
agony,  his  hands  clinched  upon  the  leopard-skins  that  strewed 
his  hearth,  his  brain  heavy  with  the  jjeut  blood  that  seemed 
on  fire. 

The  shock  had  fallen  oa  his  life  as  suddenly  as,  in  tropic 
latitudes,  the  black  temj^estuous  night  falls  down  upon  the 
shadowless  day.  Yesterday  he  had  bcru  rich  in  every  earthly 
treasure;  to-day  he  was  beggared,  shamed,  dishonored.  Euin! 
— it  was  upon  him  like  the  vague,  confused  horror  of  a  night- 
mare whose  bonds  he  could  not  break;  he  could  not  realize  its 
despair  nor  measure  its  desolation;  he  felt  like  one  drugged 
with  opiate  poisons  that  bring  a  thousand  loathsome  shapes 
thronging  betvv^eeu  their  dreamer  and  the  light  of  day  and 
the  world  of  men.     He  had  been  a  stranger  to  the  mere  paia 


104  CHAKDOS. 

of  transient  human  sorrow;  he  was  stunned  to  unconscious* 
ness  by  the  world-wide  misery  that  felled  him  down  at  a  stroke 
as  the  iron  mace  fells  an  ox.  Hours  passed;  he  knew  nothing 
01  their  flight;  the  gas  burned  in  the  chandeliers  above  him, 
still  shedding  its  flood  of  light  that  looked  garish  and  yellow 
beside  the  brightness  of  morning  that  streamed  in  from  the 
garden  beyond.  There  was  profound  silence  round  him,_broken 
by  nothing  save  the  monotonous  murmur  of  the  fountains  fall- 
ing yonder;  the  faint  noise  of  the  streets  could  not  penetrate 
here,  and  the  sounds  of  the  moving  household  were  shut  out 
in  a  deathly  stillness.  He  was  left  to  the  soUtude  which  was 
all  the  mercy  that  life  now  could  give  him.  The  dog  alone 
was  with  him,  and  crouched,  patient  and  watchful,  moaning 
now  and  then  with  sympathetic  pain  for  the  misery  it  could 
not  comprehend,  and  gathered  close  against  him  where  he 
lay. 

As  the  sun  grew  brighter  in  the  palm  and  flower  isles  be- 
yond, the  retriever  tried  to  rouse  him,  as  on  a  battle-field  dogs 
will  essay  to  waken  their  slaughtered  masters;  it  thrust  its 
muzzle  against  his  hands,  and  laid  its  broad  head  against  the 
disordered  richness  of  his  hair,  moaning  with  piteous  entreaty 
and  fond,  dumb  caress.  At  last  the  patient  efforts  moved  him; 
he  looked  up  in  the  dog's  eyes  with  a  blind,  bewildered  gaze, 
and  rose  slowly  and  staggeringly  to  his  feet,  like  a  man  feeble 
from  protracted  illness.  He  had  no  clear  memory  of  what 
had  passed ;  he  could  have  recalled  nothing  save  that  one  word 
in  which  all  was  told — "  ruin!" 

He  looked  mechanically  round  the  familiar  beauty  of  the 
chamber;  the  hues  of  the  pictures,  the  grace  of  the  sculpture, 
the  lavish  luxury  of  every  detail,  the  peace  and  fairness  of  the 
charmed  tranquillity,  seemed  so  many  mockeries  of  his  woe. 
In  the  midst  of  wealth  he  stood  a  beggared  man;  with  the 
world  at  his  feet  yesterday,  he  stood  now  dispossessed  of  every 
earthly  thing. 

He  had  sold  his  birthright  for  ten  years'  delight!  And  not 
of  the  world,  not  of  his  wealth,  not  of  the  fame  of  his  name 
and  the  worship  of  men,  not  even  of  the  woman  whom  he 
loved,  did  he  think  in  that  first  moment  of  awaking  to  this 
mighty  desolation  that  had  fallen  on  him:  it  was  of  the  trust 
of  his  fathers  that  he  had  forfeited,  of  the  home  of  his  race 
that  he  had  lost. 

Esau-like,  he  had  bartered  his  kingly  heritance  for  the 
sensuous  pleasures  of  an  hour;  and  the  sole  memory  that  lived 
through  the  stupor  oi  his  brain  were  those  brief,  brutal  words 


CHANDOS.  205 

that  devils  seemed  to  hiss  forever  in  his  ear — "  You  have  lost 

all!'^ 

A  convulsion  shook  his  limbs;  a  great  voiceless  sob  rose  in 

his  throat;  his  head  droojDed  ujDon  his  arms,  veiling  his  face  as 

the  Eomans  veiled  theirs  before  outrage  and  calamity.     "  Oh, 

my  God!  my  God!''  he  prayed,  m  his  agony,  "  give  me  death 

— not  tins  I" 

*  *  *  ^  *  *       '     * 

The  only  mercy  life  had  left  him — the  privilege  to  suffer  in 
solitude — could  be  his  but  a  brief  space.  After  the  bitterness 
of  the  night  followed  the  worse  bitterness  of  the  risen  day, 
when  its  witnesses  must  come  about  him,  when  its  wretched 
tale  must  be  rung  on  his  ear  in  all  its  changes;  when  the 
world  must  flood  in  to  wonder,  to  smile,  to  sigh,  to  censure, 
and,  yet  worse,  to  j^ity;  when  the  condemned  must  go  out  to 
the  cross,  to  be  stretched  and  nailed  and  lifted  up  in  crucifixion 
within  sight  of  the  gathered  crowds.  When  he  remembered 
all  these  things,  it  seemed  to  him  more  than  life  could  bear  to 
go  through  them;  when  he  slowly  roused  to  the  real  meaning 
of  this  beggary  that  had  suddenly  seized  him  in  the  midst  of 
his  joyous  and  magnificent  existence  he  recoiled  from  its  en- 
durance witli  a  sickening  shudder,  as  the  bravest  man  will  re- 
coil from  the  approach  of  a  drawn-out  and  excruciating  death. 

Once  the  thought  passed  him — Why  meet  it?  Why  await 
this  living  grave  which  yawned  for  him,  when  the  rest  of  the 
dead  might  be  taken — the  blank,  blest  silence  of  the  tomb 
be  his,  instead  of  the  world's  pillory  and  the  exile's  wretched- 
ness? 

Close  at  his  hand  lay  the  j^istols  to  which  his  torturer  had 
referred  with  a  jest  that  might  be  his  tempting;  they  were 
loaded  to  the  muzzle,  as  they  had  been  carelessly  laid  down 
the  morning  previous,  after  an  hour's  j^istol-shooting  in  his 
gardens  below  with  a  gay  party.  His  grasp  mechanically 
closed  on  one  of  them.  Over  and  over  again,  in  his  serene 
security  of  hajopiness,  he  had  smiled  and  said  he  would  not  live 
to  brock  a  single  hour  of  pain;  the  jest  had  become  a  terrible 
reality.  One  touch,  one  moment's  blindness — then  oblivion; 
the  world  and  his  own  ruin  would  be  as  naught,  powerless  to 
sting  or  harm.  Were  it  not  better  than  to  live  on  to  face  all 
that  must  come  to  him  with  the  rising  day?  The  old  weary 
wonder  of  Ilamlet,  that  jiiirsues  every  mind  through  every 
age,  rose  in  him  now;  the  old,  eternal,  never-answered  ques- 
tion came  to  linn  as  it  comes  to  so  many — Why  live,  when 
every  breath  of  life  is  pain? 

For  a  moment  his  worst  foe  was  nigh  the  f ulfillmenfc  of  his 


206  CHAKDOS. 

worst  wish;  for  a  moment,  in  the  devastation  of  every  hope 
and  every  possession,  death  and  its  escape  allured  him  with  a 
horrible  force.  All  that  made  life  worth  the  living  was  dead 
in  him;  the  body  only  was  left  to  perish:  why  leave  breath  in 
it  when  to  breathe  was  only  to  prolong  and  to  intensify  an 
anguish  without  hope?  For  a  moment  he  lifted  the  weapon 
up  and  pressed  the  cold  ring  of  its  steel  tube  against  his  brow; 
its  chill  touch  was  the  only  kiss  left  to  him  now,  the  only 
caress  of  pity  he  could  know.  His  head  sunk  down  against  it, 
leaning  on  its  mouth  as  it  had  used  to  lean  on  the  softly-beat- 
ing hearts  of  women  who  loved  him.  A  moment,  and  his 
dead  limbs  would  have  been  stretched  there  on  his  hearth  in 
such  a  close  to  the  history  of  his  life  a&  would  have  sated  even 
the  lust  of  his  unrelenting  foe. 

A  ray  of  the  sun,  straying  in  across  the  yellow  heat  of  the 
chandelier-lights,  fell  across  the  white  features  of  a  bust  that 
stood  at  the  far  end  of  the  chamber— the  same  features  and 
the  same  sculpture  as  the  statue  to  which  Trevenna  had  mur- 
mured his  valediction.  The  light  illumined  the  marble,  giv- 
ing to  the  mouth  almost  breath,  to  the  eyes  almost  life,  with 
ity  sweet  spring-day  warmth.  Chandos  saw  it  as  his  eyes 
stared  vacantly  and  without  sense  into  the  empty  space. 

His  arm  dropped;  his  hand  unloosed  its  hold;  he  laid  the 
weapon  down  unused. 

He  had  treasured  his  father's  memory,  be  had  venerated  his 
father's  fame,  with  a  great  love  that  n  >  time  weakened.  He 
romembered  how  his  father  once  had  bidden  him  make  "  the 
people  honor  him  for  his  own  sake;"  and  he  was  about  to  die 
a  dog's  death  by  his  own  act,  lacking  the  courage  to  rise  and 
meet  the  fate  that  his  own  madness  brought  him! 

With  that  memory  the  temptation  passed.  Philip  Chandos 
had  died,  like  Chatham,  in  his  nation's  cause;  the  last  mar- 
quis had  died  upon  the  scaffold  to  save  his  honor  from  forfeit 
and  those  who  had  trusted  him  from  betrayal;  he  would  nofc 
put  beside  fhose  deaths  the  history  of  a  suicide's  fall. 

Such  as  his  doom  was,  he  accepted  it. 

He  rose  and  walked  toward  the  window,  with  the  uncertain, 
tremulous  gait  of  a  man  dead  drunk.  He  drew  the  heavy 
curtains  aside  and  looked  out  with  aching,  scorching  eyes. 
The  hum  of  the  streets  in  the  distance  rolled  in  on  the  morn- 
ing air;  the  faint  busy  noises  of  life  came  across  the  stillness 
of  the  gardens;  a  clock  was  striking  twelve.  Each  sound, 
eiach  murmur,  every  echo  of  the  existence  stirring  round  him, 
6-4 ory  shiver  of  the  linden-leaves  near  him,  throbbed  througn 
his  brain  as  though  they  were  the  clanging,  jangling  iron 


CHANDOS.  '    201 

strokes  of  deafening  bells;  every  sense  and  pulse  of  living 
things  came  to  him  with  an  excruciating  pain,  like  the  touch 
of  a  knife  ou  a  bared  nerve.  The  day  was  at  its  height;  soli- 
tude could  be  no  longer  possible.  Even  now  the  woman  whom 
he  loved  v/atched  for  his  coming;  in  a  few  hours  his  world 
awaited  him;  even  that  very  night,  all  that  was  highest  and 
fairest  in  the  land  was  bidden  to  his  house;  even  that  very 
night,  the  fame  and  the  fashion  of  his  name  were  to  give  sus-i 
cess  to  the  crippled  artistes  best-beloved  creation.  The  world 
looked  for  him;  to  be  alone  was  too  rich  a  luxury,  too  merci- 
ful a  sentence.  He  must  go  out  and  endure  this  thing  which 
had  come  to  liim  in  the  broadness  of  daylight — in  the  sight  of 
all  men. 

As  memory  rushed  on  him  of  all  that  must  be  borne,  of  all 
that  had  been  lost,  he  bent  his  head  as  though  under  the 
weight  of  sonie  insupportable  bodily  burden:  a  sickness  of 
horror  was  upon  him;  he  strove  to  realize  all  that  was  ended 
for  him,  and  he  could  not.  Only  yesterday  his  hands  had 
been  filled  with  every  fairest  gift  of  life;  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  know  that  they  were  now  stricken  as  empty  as  the 
outstretched  hands  of  any  beggar  sitting  at  his  gate. 

The  paralysis  of  an  absolute  desj^air  fell  on  him,  mutoj 
tearless,  unmoved — the  rigidity  that  falls  on  mind  and  brain 
and  heart  under  the  pressure  of  some  immeasurable  adversity. 
He  had  to  hear  the  worst;  with  the  rising  day  came  all  the 
day's  course  must  nnfold.  He  could  not  have  the  partial 
peace  of  loneliness;  he  could  not  have  such  comparative  mercy 
as  those  have  who,  bereaved  of  what  they  love,  know  their 
doom  at  once  and  can  seek  solitude  to  bear  it.  Step  by  step, 
letter  by  letter,  he  must  pass  through  every  detail  of  his  deso- 
lation; and,  soon  or  late,  publicity  must  proclaim  it  to  all 
who  should  choose  to  listen.  He  could  have  no  rest,  no  pause, 
no  reprieve;  his  misery  had  hunted  him  down,  and  must  be 
met  and  faced. 

The  sun  shining  in  through  the  gas-light,  that  burned  dull 
and  lusterless  in  the  noonday,  shone  on  the  diamonds  glitter- 
ing on  his  dress;  his  eyes  fell  on  them  as,  in  the  extremity  of 
wretchedness,  the  mind  will  strangely  2)lay  with  some  trifle  of 
which  it  has  no  consciousness.  He  looked  at  them  dreamily, 
and  wondered  why  he  wore  them:  a  blank  had  fallen  between 
him  and  every  memory;  it  seemed  a  life-time  since  the  night 
just  pas'5ed;  it  seemed  as  though  the  life  that  was  parted  from 
him  by  a  few  hours  only  had  been  destroyed  for  an  eternity. 
Yet  with  the  sight  of  them  came  one  remembrance;  he  heard, 
as  if  it  stole  on  his  ear  now,  the  low  whisper  of  the  lips  ho 


208  CHANDOS. 

loved,  as  they  had  murmured,  "  ConiG  t©  me  to-m©rrow  **-■<. 
murmured  it  with  the  softness  of  a  good-uight  blush,  with  the 
lingering  h'ght  of  sweet  eyes  of  farewell! 

The  morrow  was  now  to-day.  How  had  it  dawned  for 
each! 

%  ^  %  4:  ^  ^  % 

He  had  to  hear  the  worst.  In  this  thing  there  could  be  no 
delay;  under  this  sentence  there  could  be  no  waiting-point  of 
preparation  or  of  hope.  He  must  meet  the  gaze  of  other 
men,  and  listen  while  their  voices  coldly  told  the  story  of  lii^ 
ruin. 

He  bade  them  come  and  tell  him  all — to  the  furthest  lettej 
of  his  doom.  Despair  is  often  bitterly  calm;  it  was  so  no\? 
with  him.  In  solitude,  nature  had  given  way,  and  sunk  pros- 
trated; before  another's  eyes,  pride  supplied  the  place  ol 
strength,  and  lent  him  its  fictitious  force.  He  met  his  fate  aa 
the  last  marquis  had  met  his;  and  in  the  sight  of  men  the 
enervated  Epicurean  showed  the  steel-like  endurance  of  the 
Spartan.  With  the  noon  Trevenna  returned,  as  a  hound  re- 
turns to  the  slot  of  his  quarry,  when  once  loosed  from  the 
coursing-slip  that  has  held  it  back  perforce.  He  re-entered 
the  chamber  as  soon  as  permission  came  to  him.  He  was  the 
holder  of  all  papers,  the  comptroller  of  all  finance,  the  director 
of  all  afl'airs,  connected  with  the  Clarencieux  properties;  with 
him,  even  more  than  with  the  lawyers,  lay  the  knowledge  of 
all  their  minutias;  through  him,  more  than  through  an}^ 
must  come  the  unfolding  of  the  million  things  that  went  to 
make  up  the  one  vast  sum  of  destruction.  He  could  not  be 
driven  out  from  the  scene  of  his  work;  for  by  him  alone  could 
the  thousand  meshes  of  the  net  which,  unseen  and  unsus- 
pected, he  had  woven,  be  traced  and  moved.  He  had  secured 
more  than  his  victory  and  his  vengeance;  he  had  secured  the 
imperative  necessity  that  he  should  behold  the  fruits  of  both, 

Yet  even  he,  evil  as  was  the  brute  greed  in  him,  pitiless  as 
was  the  envious  hatred  which  scarcely  success  could  slake, 
started,  as  he  entered  again  the  room  he  had  changed  from  its 
dreamful  peace  into  a  torture-chamber  as  terrible  as  any  that 
the  will  of  Torquemada  ever  shut  in  with  iron-clamped  walls 
and  filled  with  human  misery— started  at  sight  of  the  wreck 
that  he  had  wrought.  Last  night  ho  had  looked  upon  Chan- 
dos  in  the  full  brilliance  of  his  youth,  of  his  splendor,  of  his 
fashion,  of  his  shadowless  content;  he  saw  him  now  broken, 
exhausted,  aged,  altered  as  the  flight  of  twenty  peaceful  years 
could  never  have  changed  him.  He  was  still  in  the  court- 
dress  of  the  ball  he  had  quitted  when  his  fate  fell  on  him:  its 


CHANDOS.  209 

riciiriess  was  disordered,  its  lace  crushed  and  soiled,  its  ribbon- 
knots  and  broideries  tangled;  but  its  jev/eled  elegance  set  in 
deadlier  contvast  the  haggard  whiteness  of  his  face,  the  shat- 
tered look  of  liis  whole  form;  it  marked  in  ghastlier  contrast 
what  he  had  been  and  what  he  was. 

But  "  calamity  is  man's  true  touch-stone,"  as  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  wrote.  Met  by  misfortune,  he  who  had  shunned 
every  shadow  and  every  weariness  with  all  the  indolence  and 
fastidiousness  of  the  voluptuary  faced  it  with  a  proud  serenity 
from  which  no  confession  of  suffering  was  wrung. 

The  gas  was  still  burning  in  all  the  crystal  globes  and  silver 
branches  as  Trevenna  entered.  Chandos  had  no  sense  of  the 
things  that  were  about  him,  of  the  dress  he  wore,  of  the  pas- 
sage of  the  noonday  hours;  and  his  household,  who  felt  that 
some  great  adversity  had  suddenly  befallen  him,  dared  not 
venture  nigh  unsummoned.  He  stood  against  the  hearth,  as  his 
guest  advanced;  his  eyes  were  bloodshot;  his  hair  disordered 
and  damp  with  the  dew  of  his  forehead;  his  face  was  bloodless; 
beyond  these,  he  "  gave  no  sign.'' 

Trevenna  stretched  out  his  hand  in  their  old  friendshiij  and 
familiarity  of  greeting.  Chandos  did  not  give  his  own;  he 
looked  at  Trevenna  with  a  tranquil,  lingering  gaze;  if  there 
were  reproach  in  it,  the  reproach  remained  otherwise  un- 
spoken. 

"  Tell  me  all/'  he  said,  briefly;  and  his  voice,  faint  though 
it  was,  did  not  falter. 

For  one  instant  his  traitor  was  silent,  baffled  and  wonder- 
struck. 

Fine  as  were  his  intuition  and  insight  into  character,  he  had 
made  an  error  common  with  men  of  his  mold;  he  had  under- 
valued a  nature  it  was  impossible  he  could  comprehend. 
Studying  the  weaknesses  of  his  patron's  temper,  he  had  not 
perceived  that  they  were  rather  on  the  surface  than  ingrained; 
he  had  disdained  the  facility  that  had  lent  Chandos  so  willing 
a  tool  into  his  hands,  the  gentleness,  the  frankness,  the  gen- 
erosity, the  unsuspecting  pliability  of  temper;  he  had  looked 
witli  contempt  on  the  imaginative,  idealic  mind  and  the  effemi- 
nate softness  of  the  man  he  hated.  He  had  never  perceived 
that  there  were  qualities  beneath  these  that  might  leap  to  life 
in  an  instant,  if  once  roused;  he  had  never  dreamed  that  Al. 
cibiades  the  voUqitnary  could  ever  become  Alcibiades  the  war- 
rior. Had  he  found  Chandos  shot  by  his  own  hand,  in  th? 
light  of  the  young  day,  he  would  have  felt  no  surprise;  ho 
would  have  thought  the  close  ui  fitting  keeping  with  the  tenor 


210  CHANDOS. 

of  his  career;  to  find  him  braced  to  look  his  desolation  calmly 
iu  the  face  staggered,  and  almost  unnerved  him. 

But  in  an  instant  he  recovered  himself.  The  ruin  was  com- 
plete: and  it  should  go  hard,  he  thought,  if  tc  it  he  did  not 
drive  his  victim  to  add — dishonor  I 

With  the  concise  rapidity  of  a  mind  trained  to  jDrecis-writ- 
ing  and  to  logical  analysis  and  compression,  he  had  every  de-. 
tail  clear  as  the  daylight,  proved  to  the  letter;  and  he  showed' 
with  mathematical  exactitude  that  everything  was  gone.  Hia 
papers  were  of  the  plainest,  his  accounts  the  most  jjerfectly 
audited,  his  representation  of  others'  statements  lucid  to  a 
marvel.  If  he  had  bsen  opening  a  budget  to  a  crowded  House, 
he  could  not  have  more  finely  mingled  conciseness  with  com- 
jDrehensiveneiT?;,  geometrical  exactitude  with  unerring  quotation, 
than  now  when  he  came  to  prove  the  hopelessness  of  his  best 
friend's  beggary. 

Hopeless  it  was.  The  inheritance  which  Chandos  and  his 
world  had  thought  so  secure  and  so  exhaustless  had  melted 
away  as  a  summer  evening's  golden  pomp  and  color  fade,  till 
not  a  line  of  light  is  left  to  show  where  once  it  glowed.  It  was 
the  old,  woi*n-out,  ever- recurring  story  of  endless  imprudence, 
of  absolute  destruction.  If  other  hands  had  woven  half  the 
meshes  of  the  net  spread  round  him,  if  other  hands  had  spread 
their  snares  and  temiatings  to  make  the  fatal  descent  the  surer, 
if  any  villainy  were  in  this  thing,  there  was  no  trace  thut  could 
even  hint  it.  It  might  even  have  been  said  that  the  best  had 
been  done,  with  patient  labor,  to  arrest  the  downward  and  ir- 
resistible course  of  a  blind  and  unthinking  extravagance,  and 
done  wisely  and  toilsomely,  though  in  vain. 

It  was  true,  as  he  had  stated,  that  Chandos  had  lived  at  a 
rate  of  expenditure  quadruj)liug  his  income;  vast  sums  had 
been  drawn  out  without  thought  or  inquir}',  and  in  many  cases 
there  was  no  record  of  why  or  how  they  had  been  used.  He 
had  lived  with  prodigal  munificence;  his  houses  had  been  as 
open,  night  and  day,  to  all  who  chose  to  enjoy  their  hospitality, ' 
as  the  palace  of  Philip  of  Burgundy;  his  gold  had  been  ever 
read_y  to  aid  his  friend  or  to  assist  his  foe.  None  had  come  to 
him  for  help  and  gone  from  him  empty-handed;  he  had  re- 
lieved the  necessities  of  other  men,  without  a  memory  that 
they  might  recoil  on  him  and  become  his  own.  His  house- 
holds had  been  very  large,  and  utterly  unchecked;  the  maitres- 
d'hotel,  the  butlers,  the  heads  of  every  office,  had  exercised 
their  own  choice  in  the  magnitude  of  their  expenditure.  Xo 
inquiry  had  ever  been  made  as  to  the  cost  of  all  the  princely 
eaterttiinments  for  which  each  one  of  his  residences  had  alike 


CHANDOS.  211 

been  noted.  He  had  given  money,  drawn  money,  scr.ttered 
money,  as  he  was  asked;  and  tlie  indulgence  in  every  fancy, 
and  the  ignorance  of  all  wealth's  worth,  which  were  the  fj-tiit 
of  the  habits  he  had  been  bred  in  from  his  earliest  childhood, 
had  made  him  as  unconscious  that  he  was  sapping  the  very 
root  and  foundation  of  his  whole  fortunes  as  tiie  madman  oi 
the  ancient  fable,  who  sawed  asunder  the  branch  on  which  he 
rested  and  which  alone  held  him  suspended  above  a  bottom^ 
less  abyss. 

It  was  true,  as  Trevenna  had  said,  that,  having  but  ordinary 
possessions  of  an  English  gentleman  (and  much  of  Clarencieux 
was  rendered,  by  its  very  dower  of  wild  beauty,  in  beach  and 
rock  and  forest  wilderness,  profitless  in  a  monetary  sense),  he 
had  spent  his  years  as  though  he  had  been  a  sovereign  wiLh  an 
exhaustless  treasury.  He  had  given  as  royally,  he  had  paid 
as  lavishly,  he  had  bought  in  every  delicate  gem  or  priceless 
picture,  he  had  offered  his  aid  to  every  unfriended  talent  or 
merit,  as  though  he  had  had,  not  the  rent-roll  of  Clarencieux, 
but  the  exchequer  of  two  kingdoms  as  the  ever-tilling  well 
from  which  to  draw. 

This  having  been  done  throngh  ten  years  of  an  uncheckered 
life,  there  was  no  wonder  in  the  crash  which  followed  it.  No 
warning  had  arrested  him  midway  in  its  ruinous  course;  Tre- 
venna had  uttered  none,  and  the  remonstrance  of  any  other 
could  only  have  reached  him  through  Trevenna's  medium. 

The  whole  mass  of  the  fortune  was  expended;  the  debt- 
pressure  had  accumulated  to  an  enormous  extent.  Who  could 
say  where  what  was  scattered  was  gone?  Who  could  check 
now  the  piled-up  bills  of  hirelings  and  kitchen-chiefs?  Who 
could  tell  now  whether  all  the  great  sums  paid  had  been  paid 
rightly?  Who  could  know  now  whether  the  items  of  that 
magnificent  prodigality  were  justly  scored  down  or  not?  It 
would  have  been  as  hopeless  a  task  to  thread  the  buried  in- 
tricacies of  all  these  things  as  to  take  the  Danaids'  labors  and 
seek  to  fill  with  the  waters  of  a  too-late  prudence  the  bottom- 
less vessels  through  which  this  lost  wealth  had  been  poured! 

Trevenna,  indeed,  had  every  detail  at  his  fingers'  end.  lie 
ran  through  them  as  rapidly  and  as  accurately  as  though  he 
told  the  details  of  a  new  tax  to  the  benches.  He  showed 
how,  when  he  had  first  come  to  share  any  management  of 
these  matters,  the  locust-swarm  had  already  eaten  far  into  the 
fair  birthright  that  Philip  Clumdos  had  bequeathed.  He  failed 
toshow  wdiy  he  had  not  forced  the  bitter  knowledge  on  his 
friend's  careless  case  in  time  to  save  much,  though  not  all: 
yet  even  this  discrepancy  ia  his  narrative  he  glossed  over  with 


212  CHANDOS. 

an  orator's  skill,  a  tactician's  sophistry,  until  he  seemed 
throughont  it  to  have  been  the  one  steadfast,  wise,  and  un- 
heeded Artabanns  who  had  vainly  stood  by  the  side  of  the 
crowned  Xerxes  and  pleaded  with  him  not  to  fling  riches  and 
honor  and  life  into  the  grave  of  the  devouring  ^gean. 

Chandos  heard  in  unbroken  silence. 

Gigantic  sums  were  numbered  and  added  before  him  in 
gigantic  confusion.  Tables  of  figures  and  of  estimates  were 
jjlaced  before  his  eyes,  and  told  hinj  nothing  save  that  their 
sum'-total  was — bankruptcy!  He  had  never  known  or  asked 
the  cost  of  the  pleasures  he  enjoyed;  he  had  never  speculated 
on  the  worth  of  all  the  luxuries  by  which  he  had  been  sur- 
rounded from  his  infancy.  His  mind  had  never  been  trained 
to  balance  the  comparisons  of  receipt  and  expenditure.  He 
could  have  told,  to  a  marvel  of  accuracy,  whether  a  j)icture,  a 
statue,  a  cameo,  was  worth  its  price,  through  the  fineness  of  a 
connoisseur's  judgment;  but  beyond  these  he  knew  do  more 
than  any  child-Dauphin  in  the  Bourbon  age  what  was  the 
value  of  all  the  things  which  made  up  the  amusement  and  the 
adornment  of  his  life.  A  man  well  skilled  in  finance  finds  it 
a  hoj^eless  task  to  glean  the  truth  of  squandered  moneys.  To 
him  only  one  thing  could  stand  out  clear  and  immutable — the 
fact  that  all  was  gone.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  dispute 
the  mass  of  evidence  heaped  before  him,  as  impossible  also  to 
dispute  the  mass  of  debt  that  was  brought  before  him.  He 
had  believed  that  no  creditor  had  ever  had  claim  on  him  for  a 
day;  but,  now  that  the  demands  were  made,  he  could  not 
prove  they  were  undue.  Of  receipts,  of  accounts,  he  had  never 
given  a  thought;  his  agents  and  iiis  stewards  had  been  allowed 
carte-blanche  to  do  as  they  would;  they  could  not  be  bhimed 
for  having  used  the  i^ower,  and  there  was  no  evidence  that  they 
had  abused  it.  The  demands  of  the  debts  were  vast;  there 
was  not  a  witness  that  could  be  brought  to  their  injustice  or 
their  illegalit}'.  There  was  nothing  with  which  to  face  or  to 
d-juy  them;  they  must  devour  as  they  would.  He  heard  in 
unbroken  silence.  Once  alone  he  spoke:  it  was  as  the  name 
of  Tindall  &  Co.,  the  bill-discounting  firm,  among  his  credit- 
ors, came  into  sight,  pressing  for  heavy  sums.  "  How  are 
^/i^y  among  the  swarmr"  he  said,  with  that  unnatural  serenity 
which  he  had  preserved  throughout  the  interview  unmoved 
still.  "  I  never  in  my  life  borrowed  gold,  either  of  Jew  or 
Christian." 

For  an  instant  the  face  of  his  tormentor  flushed  slightly 
with  the  same  transient  emotion  of  shame  which  had  moved 
him  in  the  portrait-gallery  of  Clarencieux. 


CHAKD0S."  213 

*'  For  yourself?  Perhaps  not  to  your  own  knowledge/'  he 
answered,  promptly;  "  but  for  your  friends  you  have  many  a 
time.  How  many  bills  you  have  accepted  for  men  in  moment- 
ary embarrassment!  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  these  bills  have 
never  been  met  by  those  in  whose  favor  they  v/eredrav/n.  They 
have  always  been  popular  with  the  trade.  Your  signature  was 
thought  the  signature  of  so  rich  a  man!  This  firm  has  bought 
in  most  of  that  floating  paper,  and  has  taken  its  own  time  to 
press  for  payment;  that  time  has  come  at  last.  There  lies 
your  writing;  the  bills  can  not  be  dishonored  without  dishonor- 
ing you.  No  loan  was  ever  so  costly  to  its  lender  as  that  loan 
which  looks  so  slight  at  first — the  loan  of  your  mere  name." 

Chandos  heard  him  calmly  still.  The  extremity  of  misery 
had  reached  him,  and  the  peace  of  absolute  hopelessness  was 
on  him. 

"  You  say  '  perhaps  not  to  my  own  knowledge;'  unknown 
to  me,  then,  have  I  borrowed  moneys  of  these  usurers?" 

"  Once  or  twice  lately — yes.  Forgive  me,  Chandos,  if  in 
my  zeal  to  scr«en  or  save  you  I  plunged  you  deeper  into  this 
chaos.  You  sent  over  for  great  sums  to  be  lodged  in  Turkish 
and  Athenian  banks,  v/hilst  you  were  abroad  this  winter;  you 
wrote  to  me  to  lodge  them  there.  I  knew  that  if  I  sent,  on 
your  bidding,  to  your  own  bankers,  the  amounts  you  required 
from  time  to  time  would  overdraw  by  thousands  the  little  left 
of  your  original  capital,  and  that  the  bank  would  inform  you 
of  your  improvidence  without  delay  or  preparation.  I  could 
not  tell  how  to  spare  you;  and  I  always  persuaded  myself  that 
in  some  way  or  other — mainly,  I  thought,  by  some  very  high 
marriage — you  would  rebuild  your  shattered  fortunes.  I  went 
to  these  Tindall  people;  I  effected  arrangements  with  them  to 
supply  you  with  the  moneys.  They  held  my  acknowledgments 
for  the  amounts  till  you  returned;  they  knew  me,  and  they 
knew  you.  When  you  came  back,  you  may  remember,  I 
brought  you  papers  to  sign  at  Clarencieux,  and  pressed  you  to 
give  me  a  business  interview.  You  would  not  wait  and  hear 
me — you  never  would:  you  signed;  and  I  had  not  heart  or 
courage,  I  confess,  to  tell  you  then  at  how  terrible  a  pass  things 
were  with  you.  I  did  wrong;  I  admin  it  frankly.  I  was  guilty 
of  what  1  should  call  the  most  villainous  procrastination  in  an- 
other man;  but  I  knew  it  was  too  late  to  save  you.  I  was 
willing  to  let  you  have  as  long  a  rejorieve  in  your  soft  pleasures 
as  I  could;  and  until  your  engagement  with  the  Lady  Valen- 
cia I  always  thought  that  some  distinguished  and  rich  alliance 
would  restore  the  balance  of  your  ariairs.  And  there  is  this 
much  to  be  said  for  i*"*  tlip.  error  I  committed  iu  essaying  to 


S>14  CHANDOS. 

save  3'ou  added  but  very,  very  little  to  the  mountain  already 
raised  of  inextricable  debts  and  difllicalties.  It  only  gave  you 
six  months  more  of  peace;  you,  self-indnlgent  as  you  havo 
been,  would  have  deemed  even  those  worth  the  purchasing/' 

The  sophistries  were  deftly  spoken.  To  a  man  more  aware 
of  biifi'Uess  customs  and  of  monetary  negotiations,  Trevenua 
would  have  been  too  astute  to  offer  such  an  untenable  and  un- 
likely explanation;  with  Chandos  the  discrepancies  passed  un- 
noted, because  he  knew  nothing  of  the  method  of  pecuniary 
transactions.  All  he  had  known  had  been  to  draw  money  and 
to  have  it.  But,  though  the  financial  errors  passed  him,  his 
instinct  led  him  to  feel  the  falsity  and  the  hoUowness  of  the 
arguments  to  himself.  Suspicion  was  utterly  foreign  to  him; 
his  attachment  to  Trevenna  was  genuine  and  of  long  date; 
doubt  forced  itself  slowly  in  on  a  nature  to  which  it  was 
alien;  yet  a  vague  loathing  of  this  man,  who  had  let  him  go 
on  unwarned  to  his  destruction,  began  to  steal  on  him;  a  dis- 
belief in  his  friend  wound  its  way  into  his  tly^ughts  with  an 
abhorrent  strength.  It  had  been  there  when  he  had  refused 
his  hand  in  the  day's  accustomed  greeting. 

His  eyes  dwelt  on  Trevenna  now  with  a  strange  wis^tfulness, 
rather  reproach  than  rebuke — a  look  which  mutely  said,  "  Is 
it  thee,  Brutus?" 

"  I  understand,'^  he  said,  simply;  "  you  have  betrayed  me!" 

For  the  instant  his  traitor's  eyes  drooped,  his  cheek  flushed, 
his  conscience  smote  him.  Under  the  accusation  of  the  man 
to  whom  he  owed  all,  and  whom  he  had  pursued  with  a  blood- 
hound's lust,  the  baseness  of  his  own  treachery  rose  up  for  a 
sitigle  moment  before  his  own  sight.  But  it  passed;  he  even 
frankly  met  the  eyes  whose  silent  reproach  condemned  him 
more  utterly  than  any  words. 

"  Betrayed?  Do  you  take  me  for  a  second  Iscariot?  Be- 
trayed! how  so?  Because  I  tried  to  save  you  pain  with  means 
that  proved  at  best  fallacious?  Because  I  was  guilty  of  an 
error  of  judgment  that  I  frankly  regret  and  as  frankly  con- 
demn? No!  blame  me  as  you  will,  I  may  have  deserved  it; 
but  accuse  me  of  disloyalty  you  shall  not.  If  every  one  had 
been  as  faithful  to  you,  Ernest,  as  I  have  been,  you  would  not 
now  hear  the  history  of  your  own  ruin." 

There  was  a  grim,  n-onic  truth  in  the  inverted  meaning  of 
the  last  sentence  that  the  temper  of  the  speaker  relished  with 
cynical  humor.  If  othiM's  had  been  as  faithful  to  Chandos  in 
friendsliip  as  he  had  been  in  hatred,  the  positions  of  both 
would  have  indeed  been  changed. 

Chandos  answered  nothing;   his  eyes  still  rested  with  th* 


CHANDOS.  215 

same  look  on  the  man  whom  he  hcod  defended  through  all  evil 
report  and  enriched  with  such  untiring  gifts.  The  truth  of  his 
own  nature  instinctively  felt  the  falsity  of  the  loyalty  avowed 
him;  yet  that  such  black  ingratitude  could  live  in  men  as 
would  be  present  here  were  his  doubts  real,  took  longer  than 
these  few  hours — more  evidence  even  than  these  testimonies — 
to  be  believed  by  him.  He  had  loved  humanity,  and  thought 
well  of  it,  and  served  it  with  unexhausted  charity. 

Trevenna  moved  slightly;  hardened  and  tempered  as  was 
the  steel  of  his  bright,  bold  audacity,  even  he  could  not  bear 
the  voiceless  rebuke  that  asked  still,  "  Et  tu.  Brute?'' 

"  Let  us  speak  of  the  future,"  he  said,  rapidly;  "  we  have 
seen  that  the  j^ast  is  hopeless  and  irremediable.     You  know 
the  worst  now;  how  do  you  purpose  to  meet  it?" 
"  You  have  said  already,  all  must  go." 
The  same  perfect  tranquillity  was  in  the  reply;  it  was  the 
ossification  of  despair. 

"  True — even  Clarencieux. " 

The  deadliest  words  that  he  had  spoken  in  the  past  night! — ■ 
he  could  not  resist  the  choice  of  them  again.  He  knew  the 
sharpest  torture  he  could  inflict  lay  in  them. 

An  irrepressible  shudder  shook  his  listener's  limbs,  but  he 
bent  his  head  in  unchanged  silence. 

"  And  will  the  woman  you  love  not  go  with  the  rest?'' 
Chandos  moved  involuntarily,  so  that  his  face  was  in  the 
shadow. 

' '  tShe  ^vill  be  given  her  freedom. " 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  with  the  same  impatient  amaze 
with  which  he  had  started  as  he  had  entered  the  chamber.  He 
could  not  realize  that  the  voluptuary  whose  weakness  he  had 
so  long  studied,  that  the  pleasure-seeker  whose  poco-curantism 
had  so  long  been  the  subject  of  his  scorn,  could  be  the  man 
who  answered  him  now,  thus  calm  in  his  endurance. 

"  But,  if  she  love  you,  she  will  not  take  it.  If  all  that  you 
poets  say  of  the  sex  be  true,  she  will  cling  but  the  closer  to 
you  in  your  fallen  fortunes.  What  think  you?  I,  I  confess, 
doubt  it.  She  is  so  poor:  she  is  so  ambitious;  she  has  so 
sought  the  restoration  of  your  marquisate!" 

Chandos  stretched  out  his  hand;  his  breath  caught  as  with 
the  pang  of  one  who  can  endure  no  more. 

"  It  matters  nothing  to  speak  of  this.  I  have  heard  your 
worst  tidings;  now  leave  me  for  a  space.'* 

''  No;  hear  me  yet  a  little  longer.  I  fancy  I  see  a  way  to 
spare  you  some  portion,  at  least,  of  your  inheritance,  and  to 
eoare  you  at  least  this  loveliness  you  covet.     Will  you  listen?" 


216  CHAIS^DOS. 

Ke  made  a  gesture  cf  assent.  Hope  was  dead  in  liim;  bul 
he  was  passive  tlirough  the  very  exhaustion  of  extreme  suffer- 
ing. 

"  See  here!"  jjursued  his  tempter.  "  If  you  go  to  her  and 
say,  '  I  am  a  beggai-ed  man/  will  her  tenderness  remain  with 
you?  You  know  her  best.  I  trust  it  may;  but,  frankly,  my 
friend,  I  fear!  Slie  loves  you;  yes,  all  women  do.  She  loves 
you  as  well  as  sJie  can  love;  but  she  loves  power  more.  Tell 
her  of  this  thing  which  has  overtaken  you,  and  1  believe  she 
Villi  be  lost  to  you  forever.'" 

Chandos  shrunk  from  the  words. 

"Leave  me!  let  me  be!     It  avails  nothing — ** 

"  Yes,  it  does.      117^^  need  she  knoiu  it  9" 

The  question  stole  out,  tempting  and  alluring  as  the  sophis- 
tries that  beguiled  Faust. 

"  Why?"    He  re-echoed  the  word  almost  in  stupor. 

"  Ay,  why?  Who  need  tell  her?  Listen  here.  I  can 
iemporize  with  your  creditors  for  a  little  while.  Each  does 
not  know  how  heavy  the  claims  of  tbe  rest  are,  and  none 
wholly  suspect — hell-hounds  though  they  be — how  complete  is 
your  beggary.  Your  marriage  is  fixed  for  an  early  date  from 
this;  let  the  settlem.ents  be  drawn  up  as  they  would  haveheen, 
and  the  ceremony  concluded.  A  marriage,  even  though  to 
a  penniless  bride,  will  throw  your  creditors  off  their  cast. 
They  will  believe  you  are  secure,  or  would  you  wed  with  one  so 
portiouless?  You  can  leave  for  abroad  on  your  marriage-day; 
I  fancy  I  could  quiet  them  enough  to  let  you  go.  Take  the 
Clarencieux  diapionds  with  you.  Meanwhile  I  will  send  off, 
under  divers  nj^mes  and  in  secret,  many  treasures  of  yours, 
that  will  pass  out  of  England  unknown  to  those  who  have 
these  claims,  P/'id  will  be  sufficient  by  their  sale  to  enable  you 
to  live  in  mo-lsrate  ease,  though,  it  is  true,  without  affluence. 
The  rest  you  must  let  go;  but  you  will  have  secured  much— 
your  liberty,  your  love,  and  a  remnant  of  your  jiossessions. " 

"  What!  you  would  tempt  me  to  dishonor?" 

The  temptation  broke  down  the  enforced  serenity  that 
Chandos  had  hitherto  borne;  the  veins  swelled  out  black  upon 
his  forehead,  a  shuddering  passion  seized  him,  his  voice  was 
hoarse  and  harsh. 

"Dishonor!  Whew!"  answered  Trevenna,  lightly.  "Call 
it  so,  if  you  like,  /call  it  common  sense.  How  many  men, 
pray,  quit  England  for  their  debts,  and  see  nothing  but  a  sen- 
sible care- taking  for  themselves  in  it?  Doubtless  there  are  in 
those  bills  and  estimates  very  heavy  overcharges — we  can't 
cheek  them  now;  but  I  don't  doubt  there  are;  maitres  d'h6te] 


CHANDOS.  217 

will  cheat,  butlers  will  charge  percentage,  tradesmen  will  add 
compound  interest,  bill-discounters  will  demand  usurer's  toll; 
if  you  taiie  a  little  from  tliem,  you  only  take  your  own.  As 
regards  your  fair  Queen  of  Lilies,  if  she  love  you,  what  wrong 
can  you  do  her?  Wed  her,  and  she  will  be  your  own;  and, 
granted,  she  is  very  lovely.  Go  to  her  now  and  say,  '  I  am  a 
beggared,  self-outlawed,  ruined  man,'  and  you  must  know  as 
4well  as  I,  Chaudos,  that  in  a  few  months'  time  you  will  see 
lier  given  to  one  of  your  rivals'  arms." 

Chaudos  swept  round  to  face  him,  the  fire  of  passion  flash- 
ing into  the  weary  pain  of  his  eyes,  the  contraction  of  a  great 
torture  in  the  quivering  lines  of  his  lips. 

"  Are  you  a  fiend?  You  would  tempt  me  to  disgrace,  after 
having  lured  me  into  ruin? — " 

"Patience,  caro  inio,"  said  his  allurer,  softly.  "  You  are 
hard  on  your  best  friend.  And  don't  be  so  disdainful.  Men 
stood  it  while  you  dazzled  the  world;  but  they  won't  be  so 
passive  when  the  comet  has  taken  its  plunge  into  darkuess. 
They'll  bear  the  curb  when  it  pays,  but  they  won't  when  it 
don't!  Tempt  you?  what  is  there  of  '  dishonor  '  in  what  I 
suggest?  On  my  life,  I  see  nothing.  Lastnightyou  knew  no 
more  of  your  ruin  than  the  world  knows  now;  certainly,  you 
are  justified  in  withholding  the  world  from  your  confidence  as 
long  as  you  choose.  Is  a  man  '  dishonored  '  because  when  he 
holds  a  bad  hand  at  whist  he  does  not  show  the  cards  and  tell 
his  ill  luck,  but  keeps  his  own  counsel,  and  plays  the  game 
out  in  the  best  way  he  can?  Your  cards  are  bad  now;  but 
you  are  no  more  bound  to  expose  them  than  he.  Men  are  not 
your  keepers,  that  3'ou  are  called  on  to  proclaim  to  them  that 
while  you  thought  yourself  a  millionaire  you  were,  in  truth,  a 
beggar.  You  are  proud:  why  give  yourself  this  degradation? 
why  pillory  yourself  for  public  mockery?  You  have  dazzled 
them  and  outshone  them;  will  you  bear  their  laugh  and  their 
sneer  when  the  tables  are  turned  ?  You  have  had  homage 
from  the  highest;  will  you  brook  it  when  the  lowest,  unpun- 
ished, may  jeer  at  your  fall?  You  have  lived  with  royal  brill- 
iance; will  you  feel  no  sting  when  society  chatters  of  how 
rotten  at  core  was  the  royalty?  You  love  with  all  the  blind- 
ness of  passion;  will  you  feel  no  sting  when  the  beauty  you 
covet  is  possessed  and  enjoyed  by  another?" 

Blunt,  sometimes  coarse,  in  ordinary  speech,  when  he  saw 
occasion  Trevenna  could  summon  both  eloquence  of  language 
and  persuasiveness  of  phrase,  could  wind  with  subtle  tact  into 
the  hearts  of  his  listeners  and  strike  surely  and  softly  whai 
bolt  he  weuld  home. 


218  CHANDOS. 

CliaucTos  heard  him:  his  head  had  suuk  upon  his  breast, 
and  from  his  white,  parched  lips  his  breath  came  in  painful, 
gasping  spasms.  His  agony  was  mortal;  hie  temptation,  foi 
the  moment,  was  very  great. 

Subtlely  and  insidiously  the  words  stole  on  his  ear,  goading 
pride,  torturing  passion,  waking  all  the  longing  of  desire,  lull- 
ing and  confusing  every  dictate  of  honor,  like  the  dreamy 
potence  of  a  nicotine,  till  cowardice  looked  strength,  fraud 
looked  v/isdom — till  a  sin  seemed  just,  a  lie  seemed  holy. 

"  Because  you  have  forfeited  your  birthright,"  pursu&d  his 
Iscariot,  "  you  are  not  called  on  to  beggar  yourself  utterly  and 
to  summon  the  world  in  to  yitj  and  to  gibe  you.  That  which 
you  did  not  know  yourself  last  night,  it  can  be  a  small  sin  not 
to  proclaim  to  men  to-day!  If  she  love  you,  she  will  thank 
you  that  you  do  not  mar  her  sweetest  hours  with  your  own 
calamity.  If  she  love  you,  the  blow  will  fall  softened  on  her 
if  she  only  learn  it  when  she  is  your  wife,  whom  no  evil  can 
part  from  you.  Conceal  your  ruin  but  a  few  weeks — a  few 
days — and  the  woman  you  covet  is  yours;  proclaim  it  now,  and 
you  will  forfeit  her,  with  all  the  rest  that  you  have  gambled 
away  in  ten  mad  years.  Do  as  I  say,  and  her  beauty  is  your 
own." 

A  sigh,  wrenched  as  in  a  death-pang,  alone  answered  him. 
Chandos  stood,  still  with  his  head  sunk,  and  great  dews  gath- 
ered on  his  brow;  honor  drifted  from  his  grasp  and  paled  and 
withered  under  this  devilish  tempting;  v/hile  passion,  coiling 
round  his  strength,  numbed  him  to  all  memory,  save  of  its 
own  burning  pain,  its  own  imperious  dictates. 

"  Can  you  hesitate?"  said  Trevenna;  and  his  eyes  gleamed 
with  an  eager  light,  as  he  lured  his  prey  on.  "  Only  withhold 
for  a  few  days  the  knowledge  you  yourself  had  not  last  night, 
and  she  is  given  to  you;  tell  it,  and  some  other  will  taste  the 
; sweetness  of  her  lips,  and  rifle  as  his  own  the  loveliness  you 
Icovet.     Choose!" 

A  low  moan  broke  from  the  man  he  tortured;  he  wavered; 
he  almost  yielded;  he  was  sorely  tempted. 

All  his  nobler,  better  instincts  were  forgotten  under  the 
spell  of  that  insidious  tempting;  all  he  knew  was  the  yearning 
of  his  love;  all  he  heard  was  the  subtle  voice  that  bade  him 
take  evil  as  his  good,  and  hung  out  to  him,  as  the  sole  price 
of  all  he  longed  for,  one  single  sin — a  lie — a  sin  so  venial,  as 
men  hold  it,  a  sin  so  familiar  in  the  world,  that  every  trader's 
ordinary  commerce  and  every  social  difficulty's  small  entangle- 
ment is  filled  with  it  and  solved  by  it-— a  sin  so  slight,  as  a 
baneful  license  has  decreed  it,  yet  a  sin  in  his  eyes  iccursed  £U 


CHAKDOS.  219 

the  vilest  of  dishonor — a  sin,  as  he  deemed  it,  that  would  mark 
him  out  forever  an  alien  to  his  blood  and  a  disgrace  to  his 
name. 

For  the  instant  only  it  tempted  him— tempted  him  with  all 
the  mad  longing  of  passion  thut  dulled  and  dwarfed  all  other 
thouglits  in  its  own  intensity;  then  the  voluptuary,  vvho  had 
never  in  his  life  risen  to  front  a  painful  thought  or  to  deny  de- 
sire, had  strength  to  overcome  this  allurement  which  came  to 
lead  him  into  shame  and  evil  whilst  he  was  broken  and  worn 
out  with  misery.  He  hfted  his  head,  and  for  the  moment  his 
voice  rang  out— all  faint  with  pain  and  want  of  food  and  sleep 
AS  it  was — with  the  old,  clear  melody  of  other  days: 

"  Out  of  my  presence!  Cease  to  tempt  me! — cease  to  tort- 
nre  me!     By  God,  I  will  7iot  yield!" 

Trevenna  bowed,  and  backed  toward  the  door;  he  was  too 
careful  a  tactician  to  press  what  was  useless,  to  pursue  what 
was  unasked. 

"  So  be  it,  monseignenr;  I  have  done!  I  spoke  but  in  the 
roughness  of  my  common  sense,  in  the  ignorance  of  my  coarser 
nature  of  the  fine  porcelain  you  haughty  gentlemen  are  made 
of.  I  would  have  served  you,  had  you  let  me;  but  since  you 
have  such  a  fancy  for  flinging  yourself  to  the  crying  pack,  why, 
it  must  b3  so;  and  tlieij  are  ready!  You  have  the  last  mar- 
quis's superb  consolation — '  Tout  est  perdu,  fors  llionnetir.' 
I  hope  it  may  content  you!" 

Chandos,  from  where  he  stood,  crossed  the  room  with  a 
sudden  impulse,  as  a  stag,  driven  from  bay,  springs  at  the 
hounds  surrounding  him. 

"  If  it  were  not  to  make  you  viler  than  the  beasts,  I  should 
think  it  failed  to  content  you,  and  that,  after  the  beggary  you 
have  let  me  drift  to  without  a  word  of  warning,  you  want  to 
drive  me  further  yet  down  into  shame  and  shamelessness!" 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  with  a  steady,  unflinching  gaze;  he 
was  on  his  guard  now. 

"  You  speak  on  the  spur  of  pain,  mon  prince,  and  wrong 
me.  I  sought  to  serve  you.  If  my  blunter,  ruder  senses 
failed  to  feel  the  '  dishonor  '  your  aristocratic  blood  recoils 
from,  put  it  down  to  my  failure  in  delicacy,  not  to  my  lack  of 
loyalty.  One  word  more,  and  I  leave  you,  at  your  wish.  Have 
you  forgotten  that  this  is  the  day  of  the  new  opera,  and  that 
all  your  world  will  be  about  you  before  many  houre?  Without 
you,  the  opera  must  fail.  Shall  I  give  out  that  you  are  ill, 
and  that  the  matter  is  postponedr" 

Chandos  shuddered  invohmtarily,  and  the  nerves  of  his 
jnouth  quivered.     All  that  had  befallen  him,  all  that  the  fut 


^fS)  CHANDOS. 

nre  held,  had  never  stood  out  before  him  ia  its  desolation  as 
now,  when  he  remembered — the  world. 

"Alter  nothing,"  he  said,  with  an  effort.  "  liSt  them 
come." 

*'  Come!    What!    Can  you  meet  them?" 

He  smiled — a  smile  more  utterly  haggard  and  heart-broker 
than  any  sign  of  grief.  There  was  a  meaning  in  it,  too,  from 
which  the  daring  and  harly  nature  of  his  foe  recoiled. 

"  I  have  neither  killed  myself  nor  you  in  these  past  hours. 
There  is  little  that  will  be  hard  to  endure,  since  I  have  with- 
held from  if/m^ ./" 

Trevenna  looked  upward  at  him  for  one  glance,  then, 
silenced  and  with  an  unfamiliar  awe  and  fear  upon  him,  let 
fall  the  heavy  velvet  and  left  him  once  more  to  his  solitude. 


CHAPTER  in. 

THE   LOVE  OF  WOMAN. 

Such  temptation  as  Chandos  now  resisted  is  like  an  ordeal 
by  Are  to  men  of  strong  will  and  of  braced  endurance;  with 
him,  formed  to  yield  and  to  enjoy,  to  surrender  himself  to 
pleasure  and  caprice,  to  be  facilely  persuaded,  and  to  resist 
nothing  that  allured  him,  it  was  the  first  conflict  that  had 
ever  come  to  him.  Yet  where  men  moral  in  their  lives  and 
stainless  in  their  repute  might  not  have  shrunk  from  the  lie, 
but  might  have  eagerly  embraced  the  expedient,  he  whom 
many  called  an  effeminate  libertine  had  found  strength  to  save 
his  honor  from  the  shipwreck  which  swamped  all  beside. 

The  woman  he  loved  he  would  not  win  by  a  fraud. 

The  day  was  far  spent  when  his  tempter  left  him.  Of  the 
flight  of  time  he  had  no  consciousness;  one  thing  alone  he  re- 
membered now:  she  must  know  it,  and  at  once.  The  agonj 
of  the  last  few  hours  had  kept  him  strong  and  braced,  as  men 
are  with  the  burning  strength  of  opium  or  brandy.  When  life 
has  done  its  worst  it  lends  a  singular  power,  for  a  brief  time, 
to  endure  it.  Nothing  greater  than  this  can  come  upon  us; 
and  we  gain  such  a  courage  as  that  force  of  desperation  with 
which  Spfirtans  and  Thespians  buckled  on  their  shields  and 
waited  calmly  in  the  Pass  for  that  certain  death  which  Megis- 
tins  had  foretold  to  them.  Thus  it  was  now  with  him;  he 
ected  mechanically,  and  with  a  calmness  that  was  horrible 
even  to  himself,  as  he  left  the  favorite  and  luxurious  chamber 
which  had  been  fated  to  see  suffering  as  intense  as  ever  filled  a 


CHANDOS.  221 

lazar-ward,  and  went  out  into  the  bright  air  of  the  young  sum- 
mer. 

As  hJ3  carriage,  with  all  its  blinds  down,  rolled  through  the 
streets,  he  leaned  his  forehead  on  his  hands,  and  wondered  if 
he  lived,  or  if  he  lay  dreaming  in  his  grave.  Every  sound, 
every  sight  of  the  familiar  thoroughfares,  seemed  unreal  and 
unknown  to  him,  as  to  one  who  rises  from  a  bed  of  fever;  he 
felt  to  have  no  share  in  all  the  life  about  him,  no  more  part 
with  it  than  though  he  came,  a  disembodied  ghost,  to  gaze 
upon  the  scenes  of  his  past  life  on  earth.  He  had  never  known 
before  this  what  it  was  to  suffer  for  an  hour:  in  the  intensity 
of  his  present  suffering,  existence  itself  seemed  paralyzed  in 
him.  The  light  of  the  sun  blinded  him;  the  movement  and 
noise  around  seemed  loud  on  his  ear  as  the  roar  of  torrents; 
every  sense  and  nerve  was  quickened  to  acutest  perception;  yet 
he  never  lost  the  sensation  of  unreality,  of  consciousness  com- 
pletely severed  from  corporeality. 
■^         ******* 

The  Queen  of  Lilies  stood  beside  one  of  the  windows  of  her 
own  boudoir,  restless,  disquieted,  half  swayed  by  anger  and 
half  by  anxiety.  So  many  hours  of  the  day  had  passed,  and 
her  lover  had  not  approached  her.  Where  she  stood,  there 
was  nothing  near  her  but  the  foliage  and  clusters  of  innumer- 
able flowers;  the  brightness  of  the  declining  day  was  shed  full 
on  hers.  She  looked  a  woman  to  satisfy  a  sculptor's  dream, 
to  haunt  an  artist's  thoughts,  to  be  hymned,  in  a  poet's  can- 
cion;  yet  there  was  about  her  that  nameless  and  fugitive  cold- 
ness which,  in  the  fairest  statue,  chills  the  senses  and  the 
heart. 

Her  hand  was  listlessly  wandering,  among  the  clusters  of 
blossoms;  and  every  now  and  then,  as  the  impatience  and  dis- 
quiet of  her  thoughts  increased,  she  broke  them  off  and  cast 
them  down,  beating  her  foot  in  haughty  irritation  on  them  till 
their  fragrance  and  their  color  perished. 

The  door  unclosed;  she  turned,  a  smile  lighting  her  eyes 
and  lending  a  lovely  warmth  to  her  cheek.  She  swept  for- 
ward with  the  grace  of  her  step,  with  half-playfu),  half-proud 
words  of  reproach  for  such  unexplained  desertion.  Quickly 
they  paused  upon  her  lips;  she  looked  in  his  face  alarmed  and 
amazed. 

"  Ernest!  what  has  baiDpened?    You  are  ill?" 

For  all  answer,  he  pressed  her  to  his  heart  and  kissed  her 
many  times  with  a  passion  almost  terrible  in  its  force,  the 
fever  of  his  lips  scorching  her  own  like  fire.  He  held  her  aa 
men  hold  the  dead  form  of  their  mistress,  which  they  must  laj/ 


222  CHANDOS. 

down  and  leave  forever,  never  again  to  meet  their  sight,  nerer 
again  to  cliug  to  tlieir  embrace. 

Then  in  silence  he  released  her,  with  his  last  caress  upon  her 
hps,  and  moved  from  her,  while  his  limbs,  weak  with  long 
fasting,  shook  like  a  woman's,  and  his  head  sunk  down  upon 
his  breast.  He  would  sooner  have  gone  out  to  his  death  upon 
a  scaffold  than  have  told  her  what  he  came  to  tell. 

She  watched  him  in  fear  and  terror.  She  saw  that  he 
suffered  as  no  physical  pain  could  make  him  suffer;^  she  saw 
that  he  was  altered  as  no  illness  could  have  changed  him.  She 
swept  softly  to  his  side  again;  she  laid  her  fair  arms  round  him; 
she  lifted  to  him  her  beautiful  face,  which  in  that  moment 
tempted  him  to  dishonor  as  his  betrayer's  words  had  never 
done. 

"  My  love,  my  love,"  she  murmured,  anxiously,  "  what  is 
it? — what  has  grieved  you?" 

He  turned  his  eyes  on  hers,  and  in  them  she  read  a  look  that 
paralyzed  her,  that  haunted  her  throughout  her  life-time — a 
look  of  such  unutterable  anguish  that  she  cowered  down  and 
shrunk  back  as  she  met  it,  struck  by  it  as  by  a  blow. 

"  Calamity  has  come  to  me,"  he  said,  briefly,  whilst  his 
voice  sounded  hollow  as  a  reed,  and  wrung  from  him  as  con- 
fessions were  wrung  from  men  upon  the  rack.  "  I  have  been 
a  living  lie  to  you  and  to  the  world.     Listen. " 

Then,  as  he  spoke  the  last  word,  his  calm  forsook  and  his 
strength  failed  him;  he  fell  before  her,  his  hands  clinched  in 
her  dress,  his  head  bowed  down  upon  her  feet.  In  a  few 
broken,  passionate,  disconnected  words,  wild  in  their  misery, 
yet  burned  into  her  mind  forever  as  aquafortis  burns  its  record 
into  steel,  he  told  her  all. 

There  v/as  a  profound  silence  in  the  chamber— a  silence  in 
which  he  only  heard  the  dull,  oppressed  beating  of  his  hearts 
a  silence  in  which  his  head  was  still  bowed  down  as  he  knelt. 
He  dared  not  look  upward  to  her  face.  He  loved  her,  and  it 
passed  the  bitterness  of  death  to  bring  this  misery  on  her 
young  life;  he  loved  her,  and  he  had  to  utter  words  that  might 
divorce  them  for  eternity. 

For  many  moments  the  silence  lasted — a  silence  so  agonized 
to  him  that  in  it  he  seemed  to  hve  through  years,  as  men  in 
the  moments  of  a  violent  death.  He  longed,  as  one  perishing 
in  the  desert  longs  for  water,  for  one  word  of  tenderness,  one 
promise  of  fidelity;  he  longed  for  them  with  an  intensity  great 
as  the  fall  he  bade  her  look  upon. 

!None  came. 

She  drew  herself  slowly  from  him  where  he  kaelt,  and  stood 


CHANDOS.  223 

in  the  clignity  of  her  matchless  grace,  mutely  gazing  at  him 
with  those  eyes  which  had  all  the  chilliness,  as  they  had  all  the 
luster,  of  the  stars.  Her  face  was  white  and  drawn  like  his 
own;  but  in  the  amazed  fixity  into  which  it  had  set  there  was 
no  trace  of  pity  for  him,  there  was  no  grief  that  sprung  from 
tenderness. 

"  This  is  a  strange  tale,'^  she  said,  at  last,  and  her  voice 
was  bitterly,  bitterly  cold,  though  it  was  tremulous  with  the 
tremor  of  incredulous  rage.  "  A  strange  tale.  You  must 
pardon  me  if  I  fail  to  believe  it." 

He  looked  for  the  first  time  upward  at  her.  All  hope  he 
might  unconsciously  have  cherished  that  her  love  might  be 
stronger  than  its  trial,  and  \ows  that  had  been  vowed  him  in 
his  prosperity  not  prove  false  in  his  adversity,  forsook  him 
now.  He  rose  slowly  to  his  feet,  and  stood  beside  her;  and  in 
his  eyes  came  the  same  wistful  reproachful  pain  that  had  been 
in  them  when  he  had  looked  at  his  betrayer — the  pain  that 
silently  said,  "  Dost  thou,  too,  then,  forsake  me?" 

"  Believe!"  he  said,  wearily;  "believe!  Can  you  look  me 
in  the  face  and  doubt?'' 

She  stood  aloof  from  him,  lifted  in  her  full  height,  her  foot 
beating  the  bruised  colorless  petals  of  the  flowers  she  had  de- 
stroyed, her  fair  face  haggard  and  rigid,  her  gaze  fixed  on  him 
pitiless  yet  passionate  in  the  coldness  of  its  unrelenting  scorn. 

"  Believe!"  she  repeated,  while  her  lips  shook  and  her 
bosom  heaved.  "Believe  that  you  are  the  ruined  bankrupt 
that  you  tell  me — yes;  but  believe  that  you  have  been  in  the 
ignorance  of  your  own  beggary  that  you  plead — no!  ten  thou- 
sand times  no !" 

He  looked  at  her  in  a  mute  amazed  stupor  'hat  stilled  the 
force  of  the  anguish  in  which  he  had  knelt  before  her  into  an 
icy  serenity  such  as  that  with  which  he  had  faced  John  Tre- 
venna. 

He  had  never  known  but  the  tenderness  and  the  softness  of 
women.  This  vileness  of  imputed  fraud  flung  at  him  by  the 
one  who  but  a  moment  before  had  lifted  her  sweet  lips  for  his 
kiss  paralyzed  him  with  its  wantonness  of  merciless  indignity. 

"  Jiuin  does  nob  fall  in  a  day,"  she  pursued,  while  the 
haughty  acrid  ^yords  came  from  her  lips  in  a  quiver  of  rage 
that  her  graceful  breeding  alone  reined  in  from  the  violence  of 
passion.  "  Such  ruin  as  yours  is,  you  confess,  the  work  of 
years.     How  perfectly  you  have  duped  the  world  and  me!" 

He  who  had  loved  her  with  a  great  and  most  disinterested 
love,  yet  who  had  refused  to  win  her  through  a  falsehood, 
could  have  killed  her  in  his  agony  as  he  heard  her  now,  coulci 


22A  OHANDOS. 

have  crushed  her  in  his  embrace,  and  trampled  out  this  life 
that  looked  so  fair  and  was  so  merciless,  that  had  smiled  on 
iiim  with  so  divine  a  forgery  of  bve,  and  that  flung  at  him  in 
his  darkest  hour  a  dishonor  that  his  worst  foe  v^ould  never 
have  dared  to  hint. 

Yet  he  stood  before  her  with  a  calm  dignity,  a  proud  re- 
proach. 

"  Look  in  my  eyes,  and  see  if  I  could  lie!  Had  I  chosen,  ) 
could  have  wedded  you  by  a  fraud,  and  made  you  mine,  ia 
•gnorance  of  my  falh  As  it  is,  I  set  you  free:  it  is  your 
:ight.'* 

"My  right?'*  There,  in  the  glow  of  the  late  day's  sun- 
light, she  stood  amidst  the  flowers,  her  patrician  beauty  in- 
stinct with  the  scornful  passion  that  her  own  lost  ambitious, 
her  own  thwarted  pride,  made  so  intolerable  a  misery — front- 
ing him  with  a  gaze  as  unyielding  as  stone,  scourging  him 
with  words  clear  and  frozen  in  their  utterance  as  ice.  "  In- 
deed! my  rig'it!  The  pity  is  you  did  not  earlier  remem- 
ber what  my  rights  and  the  world's  both  were,  ere  you  chicaned 
us  and  misled  us  with  the  paste  biilliance  of  your  tinsel  glitter. 
You  could  have  wedded  me  by  a  fraud?  1  wonder  you  could 
hesitate  at  one  fraud  more,  when  you  were  so  long  practiced  in 
60  many. " 

"  Oh,  God!     And  yesterday  you  loved  me!" 

The  cry  broke  out  involuntarily  from  him.  Yesterday  her 
soft  caresses  had  been  his;  a  few  days  or  weeks  later,  and  she 
had  been  his  wife;  now — from  Jier  lips  poured  the  crudest  in- 
vectives his  ruin  could  ever  hear,  from  /te?'  thoughts  came  the 
foulest  taunt  tnat  could  be  thrown  at  him  to  goad  his  wretch- 
edness. 

"  Yesterday — yes!  Yesterday  the  world  and  I  alike  be- 
lieved in  your  honor  and  your  rank.  Yesterday  we  did  not 
know  you  as  you  are — a  gamester,  a  trickster,  a  living  false- 
hood to  us  both!'* 

Men  under  k-ss  torture  than  he  bore  then  have  killed  with  a 
mad  man's  blow  the  fair,  false  thing  that  taunted  and  that 
ijibed  tl.' m.  A  convulsive  effort  of  self-restraint  shuddered 
through  him:  then  he  stood  tranquil  still,  and  almost  yielding 
to  her  still  the  forbearance  her  sex  claimed  for  her.  She  had 
no  pity  for  him;  he  would  claim  none. 

"  Your  insidt  is  undeserved,"  he  said,  briefly,  while  his 
teeth  clinched  tight  to  hold  back  the  flood  of  passionate  yearn- 
ing, of  agonized  reproach,  that  rushed  to  his  utterance.  "  Be- 
lieve or  not,  as  you  will;  I  have  spoken  truth,  and  all  tbg 
tnth.     I  sought  you  when  my  fate  was  such  as  ail  menenviea 


CHANDOS.  223 

me;  it  has  changed,  and  I  set  you  free.  All  I  ask  is,  for  thfe 
sake  of  others,  keep  these  tidings  back  until  to-morrow;  and, 
for  yourself,  forgive  me  that  I  ever— '^ 

His  voice  broke  down;  his  control  forsook  him;  he  loved 
her,  and  he  thought  only  of  all  they  would  have  been,  of  all 
they  never  now  could  be,  to  one  another,  and  his  heart  went 
out  to  her  in  a  great  resistless  longing  that  shattered  pride  and 
forgot  injury,  and  only  craved  one  touch  of  tenderness,  one 
echo  of  the  fond  faith  but  yesterday  so  lovingly  vowed  to  him. 
He  was  not  changed:  were  these  accidents  of  fortune,  this 
visitation  of  calamity,  to  make  him  loathsome  where  he  had 
been  adored? 

He  stretched  out  his  arms  involuntarily  in  the  suffering  of 
his  passion. 

"  For  the  mercy  of  God,  my  love,  my  loife  ! — for  the  sake 
of  all  we  should  have  been!— speak  gentler  to  me  in  our 
wretchedness," 

It  was  the  only  prayer  he  ever  prayed  for  pity.  In  the  mo- 
ment of  its  entreaty,  something  softer,  some  grief  more  piteous 
and  less  absorbed  in  selfish  violence,  passed  over  her  face.  In 
the  moment  of  that  gesture  of  beseeching  tenderness  she  could 
have  thrown  herself  upon  his  breast  and  given  up  the  world 
for  him.  Trevenna  had  rightly  said  she  loved  as  well  as  sJie 
could  love,  and  in  this  instant  life  asunder  seemed  a  doom  too 
terrible  to  bear.  But  the  impulse  passed  swiftly:  the  weight 
of  the  world  was  heavier  and  stronger  on  her  than  her  love  for 
him;  he  had  destroyed  her  ambitions  and  had  shattered  her 
victory;  she  knew  no  thought  save  for  what  she  deemed  her 
wrong,  no  grief  save  for  what  she  deemed  her  degradation; 
for  her  loveliness  enshrined  a  heart  of  bronze,  and  her  solitary 
idol  was — herself.  She  stood  unmoved,  her  head  turned  to- 
ward the  light  with  a  gesture  of  scorn,  her  foot  still  treading 
out  the  bruised  fragments  of  the  wasted  flowers. 

"  Claim  gentler  words  when  you  can  prove  juster  deeds," 
she  said,  with  a  bitterness  that  seemed  to  leave  her  fair  hps 
with  the  lash  of  a  leaden-weighted  scourge.  "  You  have  lived 
one  long  falsehood  in  the  siglit  of  men;  they  may  believe  your 
pleaded  ignorance  of  your  bankrupt  shame;  they  have  long 
been  your  dupes,  and  tliey  may  ba  so  still:  /shall  not.  The 
premier  offered  you  your  maifjiiis's  coronet;  go  take  it!  You 
refused  it  to  my  wish;  you  will  accept  it  to  screen  you  from 
the  claimants  of  your  clebtsi" 

His  gaze  fastened  on  her,  riveted  there  by  a  horrible  fascina- 
tion. Were  those  eyes,  that  froze  him  with  so  unpitying-^ 
hate,  the  eyes  that  yesterday  liad  smiled  up  in  his  own?  were 


226  CHAKDOS. 

those  lips,  that  lashed  him  with  such  brutal  taunts,  the  lipa 

that  yesterday  had  met  his  own  in  their  last  lingering  caress? 

His  breath  came  slowly,  and  drawn  with  effort,  as  though 
life  were  ebbing  out  of  him;  yet  he  stood  before  her  prouder 
and  sterner  in  the  extremity  of  insult  than  he  had  ever  been 
in  the  full  splendor  of  his  power. 

"  Silence!  You  shame  your  sex!  I  ask  your  forgiveness  of 
any  wrong  I  may,  through  my  own  improvidence,  have 
wrought  you;  but  I  thank  God  that  I  have  known  you  as  you 
are  before  my  life  was  cursed  with  you." 

Without  another  word,  he  turned  and  left  her — left  her  with 
the  crushed  blossoms  lying  beneath  her  foot,  and  the  summer 
light  upon  her  loveliness. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  LAST  NIGHT  AMOKG  THE  PURPLES. 

The  new  opera  began. 

The  house  was  crowded  with  all  that  had  rank  and  had 
fashion  to  make  their  applause  become  renown.  For  the  sake 
of  its  patron,  the  aristocracies  of  England  and  of  France  came 
to  its  representation,  willing  to  be  charmed  and  prepared  toad- 
mire;  for  the  sake  of  its  patron,  court-beauties  flocked  thither, 
resolute  to  be  enchanted  though  there  were  not  a  note  of 
melody  in  it;  and  connoisseurs  came  in  the  gentlest,  most  gen- 
erous of  tempers,  inclined  to  be  lenient,  indeed,  secure  to  be 
pleased.  All  the  world  was  ready  to  be  complacent  to  Genius, 
since  Fashion  had  chanced  to  have  lent  it  her  bright-jeweled 
aegis.  There  is  a  sublime  arrangement  in  this  world:  the 
greater  thing  must  always  be  floated  up  by  the  lesser.  Dees 
not  the  world  phrase  it  that  a  queen  "  honors  "  a  great  states- 
man with  her  presence,  and  that  a  prince  "  honors  "  a  great 
artist  with  his  sitting?  The  world  always  loves  these  trans- 
posed  phrases  and  clings  to  these  inverted  orders  of  precedence. 

So  Fashion  was  prepared  to  patronize  Genius;  happily  for 
Genius  it  does  not  do  it  very  often. 

The  "Ariadne  in  Naxos^'  was  commenced,  and  the  most 
brilliant  audience  of  the  season  glanced  in  surprise  to  the 
empty  box  of  its  patron.  The  grand  swell  of  the  orchestra 
rolled  out,  and  thrilled  through  the  silent  house  with  a  new 
emotion.  Such  marvelous  poems  of  sound,  such  pathetic 
echoes  of  sadness,  such  intense  vibrations  of  passion,  such 
spiritual  cadences  of  thought! — in  the  creation  that  had  issued 
from  the  lonely  chamber  of  suffering,  from  the  dreamy  mind 


CHANDOS.  g27 

of  a  feebled  cripple,  there  was  that  which  caught  the  ear  of 
the  hearers  with  a  new  voice  aud  spoke  to  them  with  a  new 
eloquence.     They  came  to  patronize;  they  stayed  to  feel! 

As  the  overture  closed  in  the  throbbing  of  the  waves  of 
melody  that  swelled  with  a  mighty  thunder  through  the  still- 
ness, into  the  dazzling  light  and  glitter  of  the  thronged  thea- 
ter Chandos  entered. 

The  fairness  of  his  face  was  unusually  pale  and  unusually 
cold;  hia  eyes  had  dark  shadows  under  them,  and  had  a  singu- 
lar hectic  brilliance;  otherwise  there  was  no  change. 

"Late  he  is;  been  drinking,"  said  a  person  in  the  stalls, 
who  did  not  know  him. 

"  Kever  drinks,'^  said  one  who  did.     "Been  gambling.'^ 

Trevenna,  sitting  by,  set  his  teeth  while  he  smiled. 

"  Gambhng  '  au  roi depoiiilU.'   Curse  him!  he  dies  game,'' 
he  thought,  while  he  looked  upward  to  the  box  as  Chandos 
advanced  to  the  front  and  stood  there  for  a  second,  as  though 
blinded  with  the  light,  then  seated  himself  in  his  accustomed 
chair  and  leaned  slightly  forward  in  full  view  of  the  thronged 
building,  where  there  was  scarce  a  seat  in  the  grand  tier  but 
held  some  titled  friend  or  foreign  beauty  who  knew  him  famil- 
iarly or  loved  him  well.     Ko  other  noticed  that  slight  pause  as 
he  stood  with  a  paralyzed,  dizzy  stupefaction  coming  into  that 
blaze  of  radiance  and  crash  of  sound — no  one  except  his  foe, 
who  knew  all  that  was  suffered  in  it  and  all  it  meant.     There 
had  never  been  a  night  in  which  Chandos  had  been  more  on 
people's  lips,  and  more  in  their  praise  and  babble,  than  he  was 
to-night.     The  interest  of  the  stage  and  of  the  artists  whose 
unrivaled  talent  had  been  brought  together  to  do  justice  to  the 
new  opera  was  divided  with  the  interest  that  the  well-known 
box  wliere  he  sat  had  for  all  present.     Foreigners  looked  at 
him  eagerly  as  the  man  with  whose  fetes  all  Paris  had  rung; 
strangers  had  him  pointed  out  to  them  as  the  leader  of  tiie 
aristocracy,  the  fcrmer  of  fashion,  the  author  of  "  Lucrece," 
the  owner  of  Clarencieux.     Peeresses  wondered  at  the  absence 
of  his  betrothed,  and  spoke  of  his  appearance  as  the  Due  de 
Richelieu  at  the  princess's  fancy-ball — of  his  Watteau  water- 
party  at  his  Richmond  bijou  villa — of  the  magnificence  of  the 
bridal  gifts  he  had  ordered  for  the  Queen  of  Lilies.     Poor  men 
envied  him  bitterly — bitterly;  aud  rich  men  wondered  why, 
with  all  their  wealth,  they  could  not  buy  his  grace,  liis  fame, 
his  popularity.     AVomen  who  had  been  loved  by  him,  or  had 
loved  him  vainly,  looked  at  him,  and  alone  were  struck  by 
some  vague  sense  of  pain  and  disquiet  at  the  serenity  of  his 


228  CHANBOS. 

face,  at  the  glitter  in  the  blue  depths  of  the  eyes  that  had  evef 
till  now  smiled  at  life  with  so  careless  a  brilliance. 

He  sat  unmoved.  He  spoke,  listened,  acted  precisely  as  he 
had  done  on  any  other  of  the  many  nights  when  he  had  led 
the  verdict  of  that  house  on  some  new  talent;  there  was  not 
even  a  tremor  in  his  hand,  not  even  a  quiver  in  his  voice. 
The  intense  strength  of  intense  agony  wa?  lent  him  for  a  time; 
the  world-wide  desert  of  desolation  that  spread  around  him 
gave  him  the  desert's  arid  and  passionless  calm;  he  had  all  the 
fictitious  force,  all  the  mechanical  action,  of  fever.  The  reck- 
lessness of  his  nature  was  roused  till  he  could  have  laughed 
aloud  to  think  how  he  sat  there,  the  observed  of  all  eyes,  the 
envied  of  all  men,  accredited  by  the  world  about  him  with 
every  gift  the  gods  could  give,  and  knew  himself  that  not  a 
beggar  in  the  streets  was  poorer,  not  a  homeless  dog  starving 
to  death  more  wretched,  than  he  was. 

He  had  not  come  to  play  out  his  terrible  comedy  from  mock- 
ery or  desperation;  he  had  come  because  even  in  his  darkest 
hour  he  would  not  forsake  the  man  who  was  dependent  on 
him,  and  whose  whole  future  hung  on  the  success  which  his 
own  presence  here  alone  could  be  certain  to  secure.  But  pass- 
ing through  it  for  this  man's  sake,  the  gigantic  gulf  that 
yawned  between  what  he  seemed  and  what  he  was,  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  his  world  thought  of  him  and  said  of  him  in  this 
his  last  night's  reign  over  it,  and  of  the  mighty  lie  that,  all 
unwitting  to  him,  his  whole  life  had  been  and  was,  struck  on 
him  with  the  horrible  jest  which  despair  oftentimes  will  seem 
to  itself,  and  woke  in  him  the  desperate  and  reckless  laughter 
with  which  men  of  his  race  had  ridden  in  the  old  days  of  war- 
fare down  on  to  the  ring  of  spear-heads,  down  on  to  a  certain 
death,  to  laugh  still  while  the  life-blood  burst  forth  from  a 
hundred  wounds  and  the  hoofs  of  trampling  chargers  broke 
their  bone  and  tore  their  nerve. 

The  music  swelled  out  on  the  air,  rising  in  aerial  cadence 
and  throbbing  in  eloquent  passion,  now  clear  and  fresh  as  a 
spring  bird's  song,  now  supreme  in  its  melancholy  as  the  moan 
ot  autumn  winds  through  W'estern  forests  of  pine.  Every  Joy 
denied  him,  every  hope  forbidden  him,  every  smile  he  sought 
in  vain,  every  sigh  he  breathed  in  suffering,  Guido  Lulli 
seemed  to  have  recorded  here.  The  music  was  sublime  as  a 
song  of  David,  pure  as  a  young  child's  eyes.  It  might  not 
throughout  be  coldly  perfect  for  the  ear,  but  it  was  far  more; 
it  was  passionately  human  for  the  hear?",  it  was  eternally  true 
for  every  time. 

Chandos  sat  unmoved  to  the  end.    To  him,  though  his  hand 


CHANDOS.  329 

had  molded  many  of  its  parts,  though  his  sympathy  had  cher- 
ished it  from  its  'earliest  birth,  though  his  thoughts  had  many 
a  time  vibrated  to  its  every  chord,  it  was  without  sense_  or 
melody  or  meaning  now;  it  was  like  the  soujid  of  rushing 
waters  in  his  ear — no  more.  Yet  be  sat  unwavering  to  the 
end,  and  led  with  an  unerring  precision  the  bursts  of  applause 
that  ever  and  again  rang  tbrougb  the  Opera  House. 

It  closed;  tbe  last  magnificent  chords  re-echoed  through  a 
dead  silence;  tben,  through  the  thunder  of  public  admiration, 
the  name  of  Guido  LuUi  was  given  forever  to  the  fame  he 
sought. 

Chandos  rose  and  left  his  box  with  an  apology  to  the  Due 
d'Orvale  and  a  Russian  prince,  who,  with  others,  had  joined 
him  there.  He  went  to  one,  small,  obscure,  shut  wholly  away 
from  the  sight  of  the  audience;  here,  alone,  Lulli  had  been 
placed,  shunning  the  view  of  the  glittering  throng,  and  dread- 
ing the  notice  or  the  speech  of  any  with  the  nervous  terror  of 
a  recluse.  He  unclosed  the  door  softly.  Stretched  senseless 
on  the  ground  he  saw  the  Provencal's  form,  his  hands  above 
his  head  as  he  had  fallen  in  the  moment  of  ecstasy  when  for 
the  first  time  the  voices  of  the  world  had  given  him  that  prom- 
ise of  immortality  of  which  he  had  so  long  and  vainly  dreamed. 

Chandos  stooped  and  raised  him  gently;  the  movement  and 
the  sweep  of  air  from  the  open  door-way  roused  him  from_  his 
trance;  his  eyes  unclosed,  he  looked  upward,  scarcely  conscious 
still. 

"  It  has  triumphed!    Ah!  I  can  die  so  happy!" 

The  words  left  the  cripple's  lips  with  the  sigh  so  rare  in 
human  life — the  sigh  of  perfect  joy. 

His  gaze,  dreamy  and  distant,  like  one  who  sees  the  visions 
of  the  future,  wandered  back,  and  knew  the  features  that  bent 
above  him.  The  smile  that  was  like  sunlight  beamed  upon 
his  face;  he  took  his  benefactor's  hands  and  kissed  them,  the 
great  tears  coursing  down  his  cheeks. 

"  Monseigneur,  this  is  your  gift!     I  can  not  thank  you. ' 
What  are  words!'^    You  have  given  me  life,  and  more  than  life; 
you  have  given  me  immortality!     /can  not  reward  you,  but 
night  and  day  I  pray  that  God  may  pay  my  debt." 

A  smile  came  on  Chando^'s  lips — a  smile  so  sad  that  it 
might  have  been  either  curse  or  prayer.  He  stooped  over 
Lulli,  and  spoke  with  an  infinite  gentleness. 

"  You  will  be  very  famous  in  the  years  to  come.  Once  or 
twice  remember  that  I  aided  sometiiing  to  it.  I  shall  be  re- 
paid enough." 

And  with  those  words  of  farewell— a  last  farewell,  though 


230  CHANDOS. 

the  other  knew  it  not— he  left  him  before  the  musician  could 

reply. 

******* 

"\'ou  eclipse  yourself  to-night/' said  a  French  princess 
to  him,  when,  an  hour  later,  bis  great  world,  having  or- 
dained the  triumph  of  the  opera,  came,  as  they  bad  long  been 
bidden,  to  an  entertainment  in  celebration  of  the  success  of 
the  "  Ariadne  in  Naxos/'  "  You  revive  the  fetes  of  our 
Grand  Siccle. " 

He  bowed,  and  smiled  slightly. 

"  You  do  me  much  honor,  madaine.  It  was  in  the  Grand 
Siecle  that  a  Chiuidos  gave  a  supper  to  Marie  Antoinette  when 
she  was  daupliiness,  with  which  all  Paris  rang  from  the 
Court  to  the  Cerveau,  and — when  his  guests  were  gone,  fell  on 
his  own  sword!" 

"How  horriblel"  murmured,  the  lady.  "Pray,  do  not 
revive  the  century  to  that  extent. " 

"  Oil,  no.     We  v.ear  no  rapiers,  and  we  make  no  scenes.'' 

Every  liighest  title,  every  fairest  beauty,  in  the  two  aristoc- 
racies of  which  he  was  the  idol  came  to  his  house  that  night; 
every  distinction  in  intellect,  or  blood,  or  fashion,  or  loveli- 
ness met  round  him  as  they  had  met  a  thousand  times.  The 
gardens  were  lighted  with  innumerable  lamps  gleaming  among 
the  trees;  the  winter-garden  glanced,  a  very  paradise  of  Ori- 
ental color;  the  wax  radiance  fell  on  fairest  brows,  and  the 
diamonds  and  sapphires  glistened  among  silkiest  hair;  the 
low,  pleasant  murmur  of  voices,  with  "  fashion  not  with  feel- 
ing softly  freighted,"  filled  the  chambers;  the  echoes  of  music 
came  from  the  ball-rooms  beyond;  all  the  old  life  that  he  had 
known  so  well,  and  led  so  dazzlingly,  was  about  him  now  for 
the  last  time. 

As  the  "  thousand  great  lords"  who  "drank  and  praised 
the  gods  of  gold  and  silver  "  at  Belshazzar's  banquet,  while 
laugher  and  song  echoed  through  the  high  halls  of  Babylon, 
saw  not  the  foreshadowed  doom  written  on  the  brow  of  the 
lord  of  the  feast,  and  read  not  among  ihe  jeweled  arabesques 
of  the  palace-wall  the  "  Mene,  Tekel.,  Uiiharsin  "  that  rose 
out  to  his  own  sight,  so  those  who  came  to  Chandos  to-night 
saw  no  sign  upon  his  face,  and  had  no  thought  that  this  was 
a  farewell — a  farewell  to  joy,  and  peace,  and  women's  love, 
and  the  honor  of  men,  and  all  the  gracious  gifts  and  treasures 
of  his  life.  They  did  not  know.  They  saw  no  change  in  him. 
Great  ladies  found  his  voice  as  soft,  his  courtesies  as  graceful; 
men  thought  his  wit  keener,  his  insouciance  lighter,  than  they 
had  ever  been.     He  had  said  in  his  heart  that  none  should 


CHANDOS.  231 

be  able  on  the  morrow  to  recall  having  noted  in  him  one 
shadow  of  pain.  The  men  of  his  race  had  always  been  proud 
as  they  were  reckless,  capable  of  intense  endurance  as  they 
were  resigned,  to  limitless  indulgence;  the  spirit  of  his  race  rose 
in  him  now.  Throughout  this  night  —a  night  when  such 
agony  was  on  him  as  men  of  stronger  will  and  harder  training 
might  have  sunk  under  without  shame — he  let  the  world  about 
see  no  trace  that  all  was  not  with  him  as  it  had  ever  been. 
His  face  was  quite  colorless,  and  now  and  then  he  lost  all  sight 
or  sense  of  where  he  was;  yet  he  never  let  a  word,  a  glance,  a 
sigh,  escape  him  which  could  have  told  his  deadly  secret. 

One  only,  mingled  among  the  crowds  of  princes,  peers,  and 
statesmen  by  right  of  long-established  footing  and  familiarity, 
noted  the  dark  gleam  in  his  e3'-es  as  of  one  who  defied  fate  with 
all  the  delirious  daring  of  desperation,  and  knew  all  that  was 
suffered,  all  that  was  suppressed — and  was  content. 

Once  their  eyes  met,  with  a  swaying  cloud  of  perfumed  laces, 
and  delicate  hues,  and  fair  faces,  and  glittering  orders,  and 
sparkling  jewels,  parting  them  for  the  breadth  of  a  chamber. 
It  was  a  strange  fellowsiiip  between  the  betrayer  and  the  be- 
trayed, this  solitary  knowledge  of  the  doom  that  hung  over 
the  house  that  was  now  filled  with  hght  and  melody  and  the 
music  of  women's  voices  and  the  names  of  those  who  con- 
trolled nations— this  mutual  consciousness  alone  that  as  they 
met  now  they  met  for  the  last  time  forever,  that  when  this 
night  should  end  with  it  would  end  forever  the  shadowless  life 
that  had  been  here  so  long. 

To-night  was  the  supreme  martyrdom  of  the  one,  the 
supreme  triumph  of  the  other. 

"Finished  at  last!"  thought  the  man  who  had  never  let 

go  his  vow  of  vengeance  since  the  summer  night  long  before  in 

his  childhood  when  he  had  sworn  it  at  his  mother's  instance. 

"  All  the  toil,  all  the  lie,  all  the  envy,  all  the  bitterness  and 

the  humiliation,  finished  for  me;  all  "the  glory,  all  the  peace, 

all  the  fame,  all  the  luxurious  ease  and  the  royal  pride  and  the 

world-wide  love,  finished  for  you.     After  to-night  we  shall 

change  parts,  my  proud,  beautiful,  caressed  darling  of  women 

— my  careless  Chandos  of  Clarencieux!     Ah,  what  a  thing  is 

patience!  it  sits  and  weaves  so  long  in  the  gloom  futilely,  but 

it  traps  at  the  last.     There  is  only  one  thing  wanting — if  you 

would  wince.     But  you  die  like  the  last  marquis,  curse  youl 

you  die  game  through  it  all!" 

******* 

Imperceptibly,  one  by  one,  the  aristocratic  crowd  thinned, 
and  left  the  long  vista  of  rooms  that  had  so  often  and  so  long 


232  CHAKDOS. 

seen  the  most  exclusive  and  the  most  superb  entertainmentfi 
of  the  time;  they  passed  away,  seeing  nothing,  dreaming  noth- 
ing, of  the  fate  that  had  fallen  on  the  man  who  thus  took  his 
farewell  of  them,  but  speaking  only,  as  their  carriages  rolled 
away,  of  the  new  genius  that  he  had  introduced  among  them, 
and  of  the  lavish  and  fantastic  royal t}'  of  s2)lendor  with  which 
his  fetes  were  always  given.  The  murmur  of  the  voices  died 
away,  the  strains  of  the  music  ceased,  the  low  subdued  laugh- 
ter sunk  to  silence,  the  glittering  throngs  dispersed;  they  left 
him — his  long-famihar  friends,  companions,  and  associates — 
never  again  to  rally  round  their  7'oi  gaiUard,  never  again  to 
be  summoned  at  his  bidding. 

He  stood  alone — alone  as  he  must  ever  be  henceforth. 

The  perfect  stillness  followed  strangely  on  the  movement 
and  melody  and  radiance  of  life  that  had  all  died  out;  a  clock 
struck  a  mournful  silvery  chime  upon  the  silence,  the  fall  of 
the  water  splashed  in  the  fountains;  other  sound  there  was 
none.  The  light  from  a  million  points  fell  on  the  clustering 
colors  of  the  tropic  flowers,  the  drooping  fronds  of  the  pale- 
green  palms,  the  fair  limbs  of  the  statues,  the  deep  glow  of 
the  paintings:  he  looked  at  these  things,  and  knew  that  from 
th's  hour  they  would  be  his  no  more. 

To-night  for  the  last  time  they  were  his  own;  when  the  sun 
should  rise,  the  flat  would  go  forth  that  would  scatter  them 
abroad  to  strangers'  hands  and  enemies'  spoil.  Henceforth 
they  and  he  would  be  divided — the  things  that  he  had  gath- 
ered and  cherished  would  be  divided,  broadcast  to  whoever 
should  choose  to  buy — and  under  the  roof  that  had  known 
him  so  long  his  voice  would  be  unheard,  his  face  unseen,  his 
name  forgotten,  his  place  behold  him  no  more. 

Far  belli ud  him,  parted  from  him  by  an  eternal  gulf,  lay 
the  life  of  his  past,  which  had  been  one  glad  and  gorgeous 
revel,  one  cloudless  and  unthinking  joy,  and  which  he  must 
now  lay  down,  as  the  Discrowned  whom  the  Prstoriaus  sum- 
m'jned  laid  aside  golden  pomp,  and  Tyrian  purples,  and  brim- 
ming am|)hora3,  and  dew-laden  rose-crowns,  and  went  out, 
unpitied  and  alone,  to  die. 

That  sweet  and  cloudless  life  of  his  rich  past!— to-night  he 
was  dethroned  and  driven  out  from  it  forever;  to-night,  a  liv- 
ing man,  he  knew  all  the  desolation  of  death,  and  in  the  full 
glory  of  his  youth  was  condemned  to  the  anguish  and  the 
beggary  of  impoverished  and  stricken  age. 

To-night  he  was  driven  out  to  exile;  and  behind  him,  closed 
forever,  were  the  barred  gates  of  his  lost  Eden. 


CHANDOS.  233 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE  DEATH   OF   THE   TITAN". 

The  Duke  of  Castlemaine  safe  in  his  library  in  his  mighty 
Abbey  of  Warburne,  whither  he  had  come  by  his  physician's 
counsels.  He  was  aloue;  for  secretaries  and  chaplains  and 
stewards  were  no  companions  for  the  su23erb  old  Titan  of  the 
Hegency.  His  bright  blue  eyes,  so  fiery  and  so  eloquent  still, 
were  looking  outward  at  the  tumbled  mass  of  rock  and  moor- 
land and  giant  forest-breadths  that  made  the  grandeur  of 
Warburne;  his  head  so  stately,  though  white  with  eighty  win- 
ters, was  slightly  bent;  his  thoughts  were  with  dead  days — 
days  when  his  voice  rang  through  the  House  of  Peers  or 
"Wound  its  silky  way  to  the  hearts  of  women — days  when  he 
could  riot  in  the  wildest  orgies  through  the  night  and  dictate 
dispatches  on  which  the  fate  of  Europe  hung,  with  a  clear 
brain  and  a  calm  pulse,  when  the  morning  rose — days  when  he 
had  loitered  laughing  over  ladies'  supper-tables  with  half  a 
dozen  duels  on  his  hands,  and  looked  in  the  soft  eyes  of  clois- 
tered Spaniards  ere  leading  his  cavalry  to  the  charge — days 
when  his  frame  had  been  iron  and  his  voice  magic,  when  na- 
tions were  guided  by  his  will  and  soft  lips  had  been  warm  on 
his  own — days,  in  one  word,  of  his  Youth. 

Though  in  extreme  age,  the  duke  was  a  greater  man  yet 
than  those  of  this  generation — more  powerful,  more  fearless, 
more  full  of  fine  wit,  of  stately  courtesy,  of  haughty  honor. 
He  was  of  another  breed,  another  creed,  another  age,  than 
ours — the  age  when  men  drank  their  brandy  where  we  sip 
our  claret,  when  men  punished  a  lie  with  their  sword  where 
we  pass  it  over  in  prudence,  when  disgrace  was  washed  out 
with  life  where  we  bring  it  in  court  and  make  money  of  it, 
when  if  their  morals  were  more  openly  lax  their  honor  was 
more  inexorably  stringent,  when  if  their  revels  were  wilder 
their  dealing  was  fairer,  and  when  the  same  strength  which 
made  their  orgies  fiercer  and  their  blow  harder  made  their 
eloquence  loftier,  their  mettle  higher,  their  wit  keener,  their 
courage  brighter,  than  our  own.  And  in  his  extreme  grace 
the  Titan  was  a  Titan  yet,  dwarfing  and  paling  those  of  weak- 
lier stature  and  of  more  timorous  breed.  He  sat  there  look- 
ing out  at  the  brown  moors,  warm  with  the  golden  gorse;  and 
he  moved  in  surprise  as  the  door  opened,  with  a  smile  of 
pleasure  lighting  iiis  eyes. 


S34  CHAin)OS. 

"You!  Has  an  earthquake  swallowed  the  town,  that  we 
Gee  you  in  the  country,  my  dear  Ernest?'^ 

EVen  as  the  first  word  was  spoken,  even  as  his  first  glance 
fell  on  Chandos,  he  knew  vaguely  but  terribly  that  some 
calamity,  vaster  than  his  thoughts  could  compass,  had  fallen 
here  on  the  man  whom  h©  cared  for  as  he  cared  for  no  other 
of  his  race.  Chandos  was  the  only  one  of  his  blood  who  had 
his  own  code,  his  own  creed — the  only  one  in  whose  companion- 
ship he  heard  the  echoes  of  a  long-passed  age;  and  ho  was 
proud  of  him,  and  built  mighty  hopes  on  him — proud  of  his 
eminence,  of  his  brilliance,  of  his  successes,  proud  even  of 
his  personal  grace  and  beauty. 

Chandos  drew  near  without  a  "word.  Those  who  loved  him 
f$  the  old  duke  loved  saw  a  change  on  him  more  ghastly  than 
though  they  had  seen  his  face  set  in  the  colorless  calm  of  sud- 
den death. 

Castlemaine  leaned  toward  him,  and  his  long  white  fingers 
closed  with  a  convulsive  pressure  on  the  Mignard  snuff-box 
that  he  held. 

"  Wiat  is  it  r* 

Chandos  answered  nothing;  he  sunk  down  into  a  seat,  and 
his  head  fell  forward  on  his  arms.  The  recklessness  of  des- 
peration, the  fever  of  utter  hopelessness,  had  given  him 
strength  to  pass  through  the  ordeal  of  the  night  before;  but 
here  his  strength  broke  down.  He  knew  how  the  pride  of  the 
gallant  old  man  had  been  centered  in  him;  he  suffered  for  the 
pain  that  he  must  deal,  not  less  than  for  the  misery  he  bore. 

The  duke's  mellow  voice  shook  huskily: 

*'  Tell  me  in  a  word.     I  have  never  loved  suspense.'* 

Chandos  did  not  lift  his  head;  his  answer  came  slowly 
dragged  out,  hoarse  and  faint  from  exhaustion,  excitation,  and 
long  want  of  food  and  sleep;  for  he  had  tasted  nothing  from 
the  hour  that  he  had  learned  his  fate,  and  his  eyes  had  never 
closed. 

"  I  can  tell  you  in  one  word — ruin!'* 

The  duke's  hand  trembled,  making  the  diamonds  flash  and 
glitter  on  the  enamel  lid;  it  had  never  so  trembled  when  it 
had  shaken  the  dice,  though  a  fortune  hung  on  a  throw,  when 
it  had  lifted  a  pistol,  though  a  life  hung  on  the  shot,  when  it 
had  pointed  to  a  serried  square  of  8oult's  picked  troops,  though 
u\  army  hung  on  the  charge. 

"Ruin!     A  wide  word.     And  for  whom?" 

*'Forme." 

"•You?" 

'*  YesI"  he  answered,  with  a  reckless  laugh— such  a  lau^jli 


CHAKDOS.  235 

cs  the  gamester  gives  when  his  last  coin  is  staked  and  gone  and 
no  resource  is  left  except  the  suicide's  grave.  "  As  Trevenna 
phrases  it,  '  Croesus  has  ceased  to  reign  in  Sardis!'  It  will 
amuse  the  world — for  a  week  at  least.  A  long  time  for  the 
absent  to  be  remembered." 

A  deep  oath  sprung  from  the  close-shut  lips  of  the  old  duke; 
his  face  grew  white  as  the  hoary  silky  hair  that  shaded  it,  and 
the  diamonds  shook  and  glittered  in  the  tremor  of  his  hand. 
But  he  loved  the  temper  that  made  a  jest  even  of  a  death- 
blow; he  had  seen  much  of  it  in  his  early  day;  he  followed  the 
lead  with  gallant  endurance. 

"  Kuin  for  you?  It  is  very  sudden,  is  it  not?  Tell  me 
more;  tell  me  more/' 

His  voice  was  very  faint,  but  it  was  steady;  he  loved  the 
man  of  whom  he  heard  this  thing  with  the  generous  love  of  an 
age  that  kept  all  the  warmch  and  all  the  fire  of  his  youth;  yet 
they  were  both  of  the  same  school — they  both  suppressed  all 
sign  of  pain  as  shame.  He  heard;  his  head — the  head  of  an 
Agamemnon — bowed;  his  hand  closed  convulsively  on  that 
Louis  Quatorze  toy;  his  breathing  was  quick  and  loud.  Once 
alone  he  interrupted  the  recital;  it  was  at  Trevenna's  name. 

"  That  vile  fellow! — I  bade  you  beware  of  him.  He  hates 
you,  Ernesf 

"  It  may  be/'  said  Chandos,  wearily.  '*  I  have  almost 
thought  so  since — since  this.  And  yet  he  owes  me  much — 
more  than  you  know. " 

"Who  hate  us  so  remorselessly  as  those  who  owe  us  any' 
thing  ?" 

"  Then  are  men  devils?'* 

"  Most  of  them.  Who  doubts  it?  Did  he  ever  owe  you 
any  grudge?" 

"  None — only  benefits." 
1     "  They  are  the  less  easily  forgiven  of  the  two.     Had  you 
any  mistress  whom  this  man  loved?" 

"  Never,  to  my  knowledge.  '* 

'*  But  you  may  have  had,  unknown  to  you?  '  Wfio  loas  the 
woman?'  maybe  asked  well-nigh  of  every  feud  and  misery! 
Whatever  for,  he  hates  you,  liaunts  you,  envies  you  ruthlessly 
— hates  you  if  only  because  his  hands  are  large  and  coarse  and 
yours  are  long  and  slender!" 

"  You  make  him  knave  and  fool  in  one." 

"  The  combination  is  not  rare!  But,  pardon  me,  go  on.  1 
will  hear  more  patiently." 

He  heard  very  patiently — heard  to  the  end. 

His  head  sunk,  his  breathina"  k'rew  fast  and  labored,  the  veins 


23G  CHANDOS. 

swelled  on  his  still  fair  broad  brow,  his  giant  limbs  trembled. 
It  was  the  heaviest  blow  life  had  it  in  its  power  to  deal  him: 
and,  though  still  of  the  race  of  Titans,  the  duke  had  lost  some- 
thing of  the  force  of  his  manhood;  the  strength  which  had  risen 
from  the  Eegent^s  orgies  unscathed,  and  borne  unjaded  the 
heat  and  burden  of  Vittoria  and  Waterloo,  was  not  now  what 
it  had  been. 

"  Great  God!  if  Phihp  Chandos  had  foreseen — *' 

His  voice  faltered;  his  listener  stretched  out  his  hand  in  an 
involuntary  sup2)lication. 

"  In  mercy  spare  me  that!  Do  you  think /have  not  re- 
membered himr" 

There  was  a  joiteous  anguish  in  the  fe\;i  vords  that  pierced 
the  duke's  heart  to  the  core;  his  own  tones,  as  he  answered, 
were  sorely  enfeebled  for  the  voice  that  had  used  to  roll  its 
thunder  through  the  Lords  and  peal  down  the  ranks  of 
"  Castlemaine's  Horse  "  in  the  dauntless  days  of  his  manhood. 

"  I  meant  no  reproach!  You  would  have  heard  none  from 
your  father's  lips.  He  loved  you  well;  and,  though  you  have 
been  improvident,  you  have  not  lost  all.  You  have  been  true 
to  your  house:  you  have  saved  your  honor.  Pardon  me, 
Ernest;  your  news  has  left  me  scarcely  mj^self.  But — but — 
must  Clarencieux  go?" 

Where  Chandos  sat,  in  the  gloom  of  the  mullioned  window, 
the  shiver  passed  over  him  that  had  always  come  there  at  the 
name  of  his  idolized  inheritance;  he  could  better  have  borne 
to  part  from  wealth,  and  repute,  and  the  love  of  the  world,  and 
the  love  of  woman,  than  he  could  bear  to  part  from  Claren- 
cieux. 

"  They  say  so,"  he  answered,  simply. 

"  My  God!  and  tee  can  not  help  you.  Warburne  is  mort- 
gaged to  its  pettiest  farm.  We — of  the  Plantagenet  blood! — 
are  beggars!  I  would  give  my  life  to  aid  you,  and  I  have  noth- 
ing." 

The  confession  broke  from  him  so  low  that  it  barely  was 
above  his  breath.  It  was  very  terrible  to  the  great  noble  to 
know  that  in  the  dire  extremity  of  the  man  he  loved  he 
could  aid  him  no  more  than  though  he  were  the  poorest  peas- 
ant on  his  lands. 

Chandos  looked  up;  the  unnatural  coldness  and  fixity  that 
had  set  upon  the  fairnciss  of  his  face  from  the  moment  this 
calamity  hiod  fallen  on  him  softened  and  changed;  his  lips 
trembled;  he  rose,  with  asudlen  impulse,  and  stooped  over 
the  duke's  chair,    \ying  his  hand  tenderly  on  the  old  man's. 

"  Forgive  me  thuti  bring  this  shame  and  wretchedness  upon 


CHANDOS.  237 

you.  I  came  here  that  you  might  learn  it  from  no  other  first; 
not  the  least  bitter  of  my  memories  has  been  the  grief  that  I 
must  entail  on  you.'* 

The  duke's  lingers  grasped  his  hand  close,  and  wrung  it 
hard;  no  reproach,  no  rebuke,  came  from  him  ;  he  could  not 
have  raised  his  voice  more  than  he  could  have  lifted  his  arm 
against  Chandos  in  his  suffering. 

"  Do  not  think  of  me;  I  shall  live  but  little  time  to  suffer 
anything.     One  question  more.     She  who  is  to  be  your  wife?" 

Chandos  moved  from  him  into  the  shadow  that  was  thrown 
darkly  across  the  casement  by  the  great  cedar-boughs  without. 

"  She  is  dead  to  me." 

Another  oath,  loud  and  deep,  rattled  in  his  hearer's  throat; 
the  fire  of  his  manhood's  wrath  gleamed  in  his  azure  eyes. 
Tlie  haughty  patrician  could  have  borne  anything  sooner  than 
this — that  one  of  his  blood  should  be  forsaken.  Still,  no  re- 
crimination escaped  him;  he  never  said,  "  I  warned  you!" 
The  grand  old  pagan  of  a  colossal  age,  hardened  by  long  com- 
bat, and  used  to  the  proud  supreme  dominion  of  a  great  chief- 
tainship through  such  long  years  of  war  and  of  state  power, 
was  more  merciful  to  adversity  than  the  young  and  delicate  Lily 
Queen. 

Silence  fell  between  them. 

The  duke  sat  with  his  white  crest  bowed,  and  an  unusual 
dimness  over  the  brightness  of  his  Plantagenet  eyes;  and  every 
now  and  then  the  diamonds  in  the  box  he  held  shook  with  a 
quick  tremor  in  the  sunlight. 

"  What  will  you  do?''  he  asked,  suddenly,  shading  his 
glance  with  the  enameled  box. 

"  Dol"  echoed  Chandos,  wearily;  it  seemed  to  him  that  his 
life  was  ended.  "  What  is  there  to  do?  Nothing;  except — 
to  end  like  the  last  marquis.  An  ax  on  Tower  Hill  was  more 
dignified,  but  a  dose  of  laudanum  will  be  as  rapid.  It  would 
make  the  best  ending  for  the  story  for  the  clubs,  and  the  sales 
will  realize  belter  if  their  interest  be  heightened  by  a  suicide!" 
The  duke  looked  hastily  up,  \^ith.t\\^t  fin  sourire  with  which 
throughout  his  career  his  Grace  of  Castlemaine  had  veiled 
every  deep  agitation. 

"  Well,  you  would  have  precedent.  You  would  but  do 
what  Evelyn  Chandos  did  after  his  master's  death,  you  re- 
member? Doubtless  it  would  fiiu'sh  the  melodrama  well  for 
the  world.  Still,  were  I  you,  I  would  not.  I  am  an  old 
soldier,  and  I  confess  I  do  not  like  surrender — to  fortune  or 
anything  else.  Your  father  died  in  the  Commons  like  a  gladi- 
ator; I  should  not  like  you  to  die  in  a  ditch  like  a  dog.     They 


238  CHANDOS. 

would  not  be  meet  companion-pictures.     Besides — I  do  not 
wish  to  see  your  grave;  I  have  seen  so  many!" 

Calmly,  dispassionately,  the  old  soldier  spoke,  toying  with 
his  Bourbon  box.  None  could  have  guessed  the  i'ntense 
anxiety  hidden  under  that  courtly  manner,  the  yearning  emo- 
tion concealed  under  that  serene  smile.  Once  only  his  voice 
shook:  he  had  seen  the  graves  of  so  manyl— of  the'friends  of 
his  youth,  of  his  brothers  in  council,  of  the  comrades  who  had 
fought  and  fallen  beside  him,  of  the  women  who  had  lain  in 
his  bosom  and  smiled  in  his  eyes.     He  had  seen  so  manyl 

Chandos  knew  his  meaning — knew  all  that  was  veiled*^under 
the  gracious  courtesy,  the  gentle  smile;  those  brief  and  tran- 
quil words  to  him  bore  an  unspeakable  eloquence— an  elo- 
quence which  moved  him  as  no  insult,  no  indignity,  no  ad- 
versity, had  power  to  move  him. 

Where  he  stood,  he  bowed  low,  very  low,  till  his  head  was 
stooped  and  his  lips  touched  the  aged  noble's  hand. 

"  You  are  right,  and  I  thank  you.  Have  no  fear;  3'our 
words  shall  be  remembered.  Whatever  my  fate  is,  I  will  ac- 
cept it  and  endure  it. " 

The  duke  looked  upward  at  him. 

"I  am  glad,"  he  said,  almost  faintly.  "  Goitre  fortune 
bon  ccBur.  Pardon  me  if  I  intrude  my  counsels:  it  is  the 
privilege  of  ISTestors  to  prose  I  You  go  now?  I  shall  see  vou 
again?" 

"  Surely."  Chandos's  voice  sunk  very  low  as  he  stood  be- 
fore the  grand  old  man.     "  Before  I  go— forgive  me." 

The  duke's  eyes,  so  blue,  so  fiery  still,  dwelt  on  him  with 
a  great  unuttered  tenderness;  and"  the  tones  that  hud  used  to 
ring  like  a  clarion  down  the  battle-fields  were  gentle  as  a 
woman's. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  forgive.  Had  you  loved  and  served 
yourself  as  you  have  loved  and  served  others,  it  would  not  be 
thus  with  you  now." 

Then  they  parted,  never  to  meet  again. 

The  duke  sat  listening  to  the  last  echo  of  his  footsteps,  then, 
with  a  slight  sigh,  he  leaned  back  in  his  arm-chair,  his  hand 
relaxed  its  clasp  upon  the  jeweled  box,  a  weariness  came  over 
him  new  to  his  nerve  of  steel,  a  mist  stole  before  his  eyes, 
shutting  from  his  sight  the  flickering  leaves  and  the  purple 
moorlands  and  all  the  light  and  movement  of  the  forest-world. 

The  summer  light  quivered  through  innumerable  boughs, 
young  fawns  played  in  the  warmth,  white  clouds  drifted  ovet 
sunny  skies,  and  a  nest-bird  above  in  the  cedar's  branches 


CHANDOS.  239 

sung  low  and  softly,  as  though  not  to  break  the  rest  of  the 
Sleeper  within.  And  the  duke  still  leaned  back  in  his  ebony 
cliair,  with  the  slight  smile  about  his  lips,  and  the  diamonds 
flashing  in  the  box  that  was  lying  at  his  feet. 

The  goiden  day  stole  onward,  the  shadows  lengthened,  the 
birds  sought  their  roost,  and  the  young  fawns  their  couches; 
the  peace" of  evening  brooded  on  the  earth,  all  things  were  at 
rest,  and  so  was  he;  for  he  still  sat  there,  motionless  and  with 
the  jewels  gleaming  at  his  feet. 

The  sunset  faded,  and  the  twilight  came,  the  purple  haze 
upon  the  moorlands  deepening  to  night.  Still  he  sat  there, 
while  the  shadows  stole  the  brilliance  from  the  diamonds  and 
softly  veiled  his  face  as  though  in  reverence.  And  when  some 
of  his  wide  household,  who  were  so  nigh,  yet  whom  he  could 
not  lift  his  band  to  summon,  dared  to  venture  at  length  un- 
bidden to  his  presence,  they  found  him  thus;  and  a  great  awe 
fell  on  them,  and  the  hush  of  a  breathless  dread;  for  they 
knew  that  they  were  standing  in  the  presence  of  Death. 

The  last  of  a  race  of  Titans  had  died,  as  well  became  him, 
in  silence,  and  alone,  without  a  sign,  and  with  a  smile  upon 
his  lips. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
"and  the  spoileks  came  dowk.'^ 

It  was  night  at  Clarencieux. 

In  the  Greuze  cabinet,  where  a  few  weeks  before  Chandos 
had  stood  lightly  glancing  through  the  French  novel,  with  the 
warmth  of  its  fire  shed  mellow  and  ruddy  about  him,  he  stood 
now.  The  twilight  of  the  summer  evening  had  but  just  fallen; 
the  pale  moon  streamed  in  through  the  oriels;  even  the  fair, 
rich  hues  of  the  French  painter's  women  looked  ashen  and 
weary  in  the  misty  half  light  that  was  alone  in  the  chamber. 
Chandos  leaned  against  the  high  carved  marble  of  the  mantel- 
piece; his  chest  was  bowed  as  with  the  weight  of  age;  he 
breathed  heavily,  and  with  each  breath  ])iun:  his  face  was 
white  as  the  sculpture  he  rested  on,  and  set  into  that  deadly 
calm  which  had  never  left  him  when  in  others'  sight.  The 
tidings  of  the  duke's  death  had  reached  him  some  days,  and 
had  filled  uj^  the  measure  of  his  anguish,  adding  to  it  the  tort- 
ure of  a  passionate  regret,  of  an  eternal  remorse.  He  had 
loved  the  grand  old  man  from  whose  fearless,  fiery  eyes  no 
glance  but  one  of  kindness  and  of  gentleness  had  looked  on 
him  from  his  earliest  childhood:  and  he  knew  that  the  shock 


240  CHANDOS. 

of  his  own  ruin  had  slain  the  mighty  strength  of  the  old  noble, 
if  ever  grief  killed  age. 

He  stood  alone;  his  heart  seemed  numb  and  dead  with  mis- 
ery; he  gave  no  sign  of  emotion;  no  tears  had  ever  come  iuto 
his  eyes  since  the  hour  in  which  his  fate  fell  on  him.  The 
nights  had  passed  pacing  slee2:)less  to  and  fro  his  chamber,  or 
heavily  drugged  to  rest  with  opium;  the  days  had  passed  almosfc 
fasting,  and  in  an  apathy  that  awed  those  about  him  with  a 
vague  terror  lest  his  end  should  be  in  the  vacant  gloom  of  mad- 
ness. He  was  self-possessed,  self-controlled;  he  answered  tran- 
quilly, he  heard  i^atiently;  but  there  was  that  in  this  mechan- 
ical action,  this  unnatural  serenity,  that  had  a  more  horrible 
dread  for  those  who  saw  him  than  all  the  ravings  of  delirium, 
all  the  passion  of  grief,  could  ever  have  had. 

The  door  unclosed:  John  Trevenna  entered. 

"  They  are  all  here/'  he  said,  more  softly  than  he  had  ever 
spoken. 

Chandos  bent  his  head  and  followed  him  out  of  the  chamber. 
They  who  waited  were  his  creditors. 

In  a  day,  with  the  rush  of  hell-hounds  let  out  of  leash,  and 
as  though  at  a  given  unanimous  signal,  his  claimants  had 
poured  and  pressed  in  on  him,  baying  with  one  tongue  for  their 
one  quarry — money.  He  had  bidden  them  all  meet  here,  and 
they  had  come  without  one  missing — a  strange  gathering  for 
the  halls  of  Clarencieux,  where  kings  had  used  to  find  their 
surest  shelter,  and  courts  had  been  entertained  through  Plan- 
tagenet  and  Elizabethan  and  Stuart  days. 

They  were  collected  in  the  great  banque ting-hall;  a  mob  of 
more  than  a  hundred  men — men  who  had  come  down  on  the 
same  errand,  in  the  same  temper,  sullen  yet  eager,  defiant  yet 
suspicious,  savage  yet  audacious — men  who  had  no  mercy  on 
a  dethroned  royalty,  and  who  had  no  sight  save  for  the  deficit 
they  pushed  to  claim.  Still  even  on  them  the  solemn  and 
venerable  beauty  of  Clarencieux  had  a  quieting  spell.  As 
they  had  entered,  their  voices  unconsciously  had  sunk  lower, 
their  gait  involuntarily  had  grown  less  swaggering;  and  as 
they  stood  now,  counting  with  greedy  eyes  the  worth  and 
magnificence  of  the  banqueting-room,  a  silence  had  fallen  on 
them. 

"Feels  almost  like  a  church,''  whispered  one,  a  picture- 
dealer,  as  he  looked  down  the  vista  of  the  double  porphyry 
columns. 

As  he  spoke,  Chandos  entered. 

He  bowed  to  them  with  a  grave  and  courteous  grace;  all 
had  their  hats  on,  even  those  better  bred,  from  the  sense  of 


CHANDOS.  241 

scorn  in  which  they  held  a  debtor,  and  for  the  sake  of  vaunt- 
ing and  of  claiming  their  own  superiority.  Involuntarily,  as 
they  saw  him,  they  uncovered  in  respectful  silence,  the  Jew 
Ignatius  Mathias,  who  represented  the  bill-discounting  Arm, 
alone  remaining  the  exception.  Trevenna's  eye  had  glanced 
at  him  as  his  hand  went  to  his  velvet  cap,  and  his  arm  had 
dropped  as  though  paralyzed. 

In  the  stillness  Chandos  advanced  up  the  hall,  his  eyes  rest- 
ing unmoved  on  the  strange  and  motley  group  that  filled  with 
their  uncomely  forms,  and  with  almost  every  type  of  European 
nationality,  the  porphyry  chamber  where  king  and  prince  and 
peer  had  used  to  sit,  his  guests  and  his  boon  friends.  His 
perfect  calmness  was  unchanged;  his  bearing  was  grave  and 
proud;  his  face  looked  white  as  the  marble  of  a  statue  against 
which  ho  paused,  death-white  beside  the  black  velvet  of  the 
morning  dress  he  wore,  but  it  was  composed,  haughty, 
thoughtful — strangely  like  the  face  of  the  last  marquis,  'rhere 
was  not  a  murmur,  not  a  whisper,  raised;  there  was  that  in 
his  look  which  held  the  coarsest,  the  greediest,  the  most  piti- 
less, silent. 

He  stood  beside  the  statue  (it  was  that  of  his  father)  and 
turned  toward  them.  He  was  at  the  upper  end  of  the  porphyry 
hall,  and  the  multitude  faced  him  in  the  glow  of  the  lights 
that  were  illumined  here. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  calmly,  with  a  tremor  in  his  voice, 
though  it  was  faint  as  after  long  illness,  "  I  have  but  a  few 
words  to  say  to  you.  You  are  here  to  enforce  your  claims. 
Of  anyone  of  those  claims  I  was  in  ignorance  a  few  days  since; 
but  I  dispute  none  of  them:  the  improvidence  of  my  life  has 
left  me  no  title  to  do  so.  You  will  doubt  me,  perhaps,  when 
I  say  I  never  knew  I  owed  a  single  debt;  yet  such  is  the 
truth. " 

There  was  a  stir  among  the  crowd,  restless,  pained,  yet 
curious;  they  could  not  tell  the  meaning  of  this,  yet  they  W'ere 
stirred  with  a  singular  awe  and  wonder.  One  voice,  the  pict- 
ure-dealer's, rough  yet  cordial,  broke  the  silence — 

"  We  believe  you!  damned  if  we  don't!  You  ha'n't  got  a 
face  what  lies!" 

Chandos  bent  his  head  in  silent  acknowledgment. 

"For  the  rest,"  he  continued,  still  with  that  unchanged 
tranquillity,  "  I  have  but  little  to  add.  The  amount  of  your 
claims  on  me  is,  in  the  aggregate,  sufficient  to  wreck  fortunes 
ten.  times  larger  than  mine  has  been;  yet,  as  I  understand, 
you  can  be  paid  in  full  by  my  entire  surrender  of  all  that  I 
possess.     This  surrender  I  make;  my  lawyers  will  explain  its 


24:2  CHANbos. 

value  better  than  I  can  do.  I  resign  everything  uncondition« 
ally  to  you;  it  has  become  no  longer  mine,  but  yours.  I  be- 
lieve there  will  be  enough  to  satisfy  you  to  the  uttermost  far- 
thing. " 

The  murmur  rose  deeper  and  louder  in  the  hall;  the  mass 
of  men  swayed  together  as  though  stirred  by  a  universal  im- 
pulse. They  had  come  prepared  to  bully,  to  bluster,  to  de- 
maud,  to  enforce,  and  they  were  disarmed.  Moreover,  as  he 
stood  against  the  statue,  they  remembered  the  fame  of  Philip 
Chandos;  the  coarsest  among  them  felt  a  pang  of  shame  tha't 
his  only  son  should  be  standing  thus  before  them  now. 

They  looked  at  one  another;  they  could  not  comprehend 
this  man  who  voluntarily  came  and  laid  down  all  his  posses- 
sions at  their  feet,  and  yet  in  their  own  rough  way  they  under- 
stood him;  they  would  fain  now  have  sympathized  with  him 
had  they  known  how.  The  picture-dealer— a  rude,  broad 
boar,  who  was  worth  near  a  million,  and  whose  claims  were 
the  largest  of  any  there  save  the  Jew's — pressed  himself  for- 
ward again,  and  spoke  what  all  there  felt,  spoke  with  a  genuine 
emotion  in  his  harsh  voice,  with  a  mist  before  his  sharp  and 
eager  eyes — 

"  Sir,  you're  a  gentlemen,  and  have  behaved  like  one. 
We  thank  you,  all  on  us.  If  we'd  a'  known,  we'd  a'  waited — 
ay,  bless  you,  we  would;  but  that  a'n't  here  nor  there.  Your 
father  was  a  great  man,  but  damned  if  I  don^t  think  you're  a 
greater;  and  if  there's  any  little  matter — any  picter',  or  that 
like — that  joii  set  particular  store  on,  say  the  word,  and  it 
shall  be  kept  for  you,  or  I'll  know  the  reason  why." 

"  Spoke  up  right  well,  Caleb!  hear!  hear!"  muttered  an- 
other; and  the  applause  was  echoed  and  murmured  down  the 
whole  body  of  the  hall,  till  even  the  fashionable  tradesmen, 
who  had  heard  and  had  looked  on  supercilious  and  impassive, 
were  moved  by  it,  and  joined  it. 

Chandos  bowed  his  head  again. 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  good  will  and  for  the  belief  3^ou  give 
me.  I  will  leave  you  now.  My  men  of  business  will  conclude 
all  arrangements  with  you,  and  my  servants  will  bring  you 
refreshments  here.  For  your  oiler,  there  is  nothing  I  would 
claim.  I  have  said  I  give  up  all;  but  if  there  be  any  surplus 
left,  I  will  ask  you  to  do  me  the  favor  to  sink  it  in  an  annuity 
for  one  who  has  been  long  dependent  upon  me,  and  whose 
health  can  never  let  him  be  as  other  men  are:  I  mean  the 
musician,  Guido  LuUi." 

A  profound  silence  followed  on  his  words — the  silence  of 
supreme  astonishment.     He  might  have  taken  advantage  of 


CHANDOS.  243 

their  offer  to  ask  anything,  and  he  thought  on]y  of  providing 
for  a  foreign  cripple! 

Caleb,  the  dealer,  broke  the  stillness  as  before,  dashing  his 
hat  down  on  the  mosaic  with  a  stormy  oath. 

"  I  wore  that  hat  afore  you — I'd  sooner  uncover  to  you  than 
to  all  the  kings.  Lulii  shall  be  took  care  of;  Til  go  bail  for 
that." 

Cliandos  turned  with  that  royal  grace  which  had  made  him 
the  darling  of  courts,  and  could  never  leave  him  while  he  had 
life,  and  silently  stretched  out  his  hand — the  delicate  patrician 
hand  which  his  foe  had  hated — to  the  rough,  uncleanly,  hairy 
palm  of  the  dealer.  Then,  with  a  bow  to  the  standhig  multi- 
tude, he  passed  out  of  the  porphyry  chamber;  and  they  made 
way  for  their  debtor  as  men  make  way  for  monarchs. 

The  Israelite  Ignatius  smothered  a  sigh  in  his  patriarchal 
beard. 

"  Agostino  was  right.    It  is  worse  than  murder!"  he  thought. 

Trevenua  ground  his  teeth,  baffled  even  in  the  sweetness  of 
his  utter  victory. 

"  Curse  him!  Do  what  you  will,  you  can't  lotver  him!"  he 
mused. 

Caleb,  the  dealer,  stood  curiously  looking  at  and  touching 
with  a  sort  of  wonder  his  own  tough  broad  right  hand. 

"  He  shook  it,  he  dirl,"  he  murmured;  "  and  they  call  him 
as  proud  as  the  devil.  He  warn't  above  taking  it.  Damn  me 
if  it  shall  ever  do  so  much  dirty  work  agen!" 

A  few  hours  later,  Trevenna  re-entered  the  Greuze  cabinet. 

Chaudos  sat  alone  before  the  still- opened  window;  there  was 
even  now  no  light,  except  the  pale  radiance  of  the  moon,  in 
which  the  fair  women  of  the  French  painter  lost  life  and  color 
and  smiled  a  deathly  smile.  His  head  was  drooped  forward; 
iiis  eyes  fixed  on  the  moonlit  forest  and  river  scenes  beyond. 
In  his  hand  was  the  tube  of  a  great  Eastern  narghile,  and  the 
smoke  that  curled  from  it  was  suffocating  in  its  perfume;  it 
was  the  smoke  of  opium.  Tims,  hour  after  hour  of  night  or 
day,  in  solitude,  he  would  sit  and  gaze  out  at  the  lauds  he 
had  lost,  and  strive  to  steejj  his  senses  and  his  agony  in  th« 
insensibility  of  the  nicotine. 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  and  smiled. 

"Ah,  monseigneur,"  he  thought,  "you  are  proud  as  the 
devil,  and  calm  as  a  statue,  and  unmoved  as  ice,  before  the 
eyes  of  the  world;  but  you  suffer  the  worse  for  tliaf.  You 
bear  it  grandly  now,  and  will  not  show  that  you  are  fallen: 
but  you  will  go  to  wreck  and  ruin  body  and  soul  in  no  time, 


244  __  CHANDOS. 

for  all  that.  You  have  takeu  to  opium,  have  you?  There 
will  not  be  much  left  of  your  beauty  and  your  geuius  iu  twelve 
mouths'  time.  You  had  better  have  shot  yourself  that  night 
you  were  so  minded  to;  it  would  have  saved  you  a  world  of 
trouble,  and  could  not  have  destroved  you  more  utterly  than 
t.hat  will  do!" 

He  moved  forward;  Chandos  neither  heard  nor  saw  him. 
Trevenna  called  him  by  his  name;  he  did  not  raise  his  head 
nor  give  a  sign  of  knowledge;  he  sat,  bent  forward,  looking 
dreamily  out  at  the  night-world  of  dew-laden  grasses,  and 
mighty  forests  bathed  in  starlight,  and  dark  skies  with  wreath- 
ing mists  of  white  summer  vapor,  and  beyond  all  the  silver 
line  of  the  calm  sea. 

Trevenna  touched  him  on  the  shoulder;  then  he  raised  his 
eyes;  there  was  in  them  so  senseless,  so  sightless  a  look  of  in- 
tolerable pain,  yet  almost  utter  unconsciousness,  while,  dilated 
by  the  opiate,  the  pupils  were  twice  their  natural  size,  that 
the  man  who  had  pursued  him  might  well  have  thought  his 
pursuit  would  end  in  the  chambers  of  a  mad-house. 

"  Chandos,  can't  you  hear  me?" 

"  Hear!"  he  echoed,  wearily.  "  Shall  I  never  have  heard 
all?     What  more  can  there  be?" 

"  What  more?  Then  have  you  no  heed  as  to  what  becomes 
of  Clarencieux?" 

Trevenna  saw  the  shudder  which  always  passed  over  him  at 
che  name  shake  him  from  head  to  foot. 

"No  heed?     //" 

In  the  stifled  words  there  was  a  piteous  anguish  that  might 
have  moved  his  torturer  to  mercy  were  not  the  man  who 
hates  a  blood-hound  whom  no  death-struggles  will  sate  till  the 
last  drop  of  life-blood  has  ebbed  out. 

"  Well,  it  must  go,"  he  went  on  without  remorse;  he  had 
had  many  a  pleasant  banquet  in  that  choice  Greuze  room,  but 
none  so  full  of  flavor  to  him  as  the  banquet  he  enjoyed  now. 
"  The  men  are  m  a  good  mood;  you  have  pleased  them 
mightily;  and  it's  a  great  pity  when  you  had  the  offer  that 
you  didn't  clinch  it  and  ask  'em  straight  off  for  the  Claren- 
cieux diamonds.  I  do  believe  you  might  have  had  them. 
Englishmen  are  such  almighty  fools  when  they  once  get  soft 
and  sentimental!  Still,  though  they've  taken  such  a  fancy  to 
you,  they  won't  do  without  their  money.  Park  Lane  must  go, 
and  Clarencieux  must  gj!" 

Chandos  rose  to  his  feet;  his  large  eyes,  looking  twice  as 
large  with  the  dark  dreamy  gaze  the  opiate  gave  them,  dwelt 
with  weaiy,  heart-sick  p  ju  on  his  tormentor. 


CHANDOS.  245 

"  Why  come  to  tell  me  this?  You  heard  me.  I  gave  them 
-.11/' 

Trevenna  sliruo^ged  his  shoulders. 

"  Tres  cher,  you  did.  It  was  just  as  well  to  give  it  them 
with  a  good  grace  seeing  that  they  would  assuredly  have  taken 
it.  But  the  point  that  concerns  Clarencieux  is,  how  will  it  go? 
It  may  go  by  private  contract,  if  they're  all  of  one  mind — 
which  no  set  of  Britons  ever  was  yet;  if  not,  it  goes  by  public 
auction.  ■" 

Chandos  drew  his  breath  with  a  sharp  contraction.  Despite 
the  dull,  heavy,  half-drunk  stupor  of  the  opium,  each  one  of 
these  phrases  quivered  through  him  with  a  fearful  force. 

"  And  if  it  go  by  public  auction,  they  will  divide  it," 
pursued  Trevenna,  while  almost  unconsciously  in  his  triumph 
he  lost  his  caution,  and  in  his  friend's  ruin  eased  himself  for 
the  yoke  so  long  borne  before  his  friend's  superiority  by  an  in- 
dulgence in  a  contemptuous  authoritative  insolence  that  pru- 
dence would  have  forbidden  him,  precious  as  its  enjoyment 
was. 

''  Divide  it!" 

The  echoed  words  were  hollow  and  inarticulate;  a  fresh 
misery  faced  him.  He  knew  that  he  and  his  home  must  part, 
that  strangers  must  rule  in  his  father's  heritage,  and  that  the 
place  he  loved  must  see  his  face  no  more;  but  he  had  never 
thought  that  his  heritage  could  be  parceled  out  and  severed 
among  the  spoilers,  and  scattered  north  and  south,  east  and 
west. 

*' Yes— divided." 

The  certain  vulgarity  which  had  always  underlaid  the  tone 
of  Trevenna's  manner,  though  his  scholarly  culture  had  coun- 
terbalanced it  and  his  familiarity  with  good  society  almost 
effaced  it,  came  out  now  almost  unconsciously  to  himself,  as 
lie  stood  on  the  hearth,  with  the  careless  insolence  of  a  coarse 
temper  to  adversity,  and  addressed,  with  a  roughness  he  had 
never  dared  to  use,  the  man  who  now  had  no  power  and  no 
title  in  the  home  that  had  so  long  called  him  master. 

"  You  won't  be  consulted,  you  know:  it's  theirs  now,  and 
of  course  they'll  go  the  best  way  to  work  to  make  money  by 
it.  We  can't  hel^_  that:  wish  we  could!  It  will  bring  most 
so,  sold  in  lots.  Tu  Castle  will  go  with  the  Home  Park,  of 
course;  some  millionan-e  will  buy  it,  very  likely,  just  as  it 
stands,  furniture,  pictures,  and  all;  or  else,  they  say,  it  may 
be  bought  by  government  ior  a  new  military  hospital.  I  don't 
know  about  that  myself;  but  some  say  so.  The  rest  will  go 
in  lots;  the  forests  will  fetch  no  end  for  timber;  those  oaka 


246  CHANDOS. 

and  elms  are  worth  auy  money  for  ship-Duilding  and  railway., 
carriages.  The  deer-park  they'll  tarn  into  a  sheep-walk,  kill 
the  herds,  and  drain  the  land;  and  all  that  waste  part  by  the 
sea,  so  pretty  to  look  at,  you  know,  and  worth  just  nothing  ac 
all  for  agricnlture,  they'll  sell  for  building  purposes.  All 
that  rock,  and  gorse,  and  moor,  and  pine-wood  will  tell  un- 
commonly well  in  an  auctioneer's  periods.  The  air^s  beauti- 
ful; the  sea  runs  right  up  under  the  trees.  It  will  take  the 
public  mightily  as  a  bathing-place.  I'll  be  bound  In  ten  years' 
time  villas  will  cover  the  whole  sea-line,  and  hotels  will  be 
cropping  up  among  the  firs  like  mad.  A  company's  sure  to 
dart  at  it." 

For  his  life  he  could  not  restrain  the  merciless  jocularity;  it 
was  so  delicious  to  him  to  stand  there  in  that  Greuze  cabinet, 
where  the  pangs  of  envy  had  gnawed  him  so  bitterly  many  a 
time,  and  parcel  out  by  his  words  the  magnificent  demesne  he 
had  longed  so  savagely  to  see  sold  to  the  Egyptians  and  divided 
among  the  thieves,  as  the  sous  of  Jacob  longed  to  tear  the 
many-colored  coat  in  rags  and  sell  the  favorite  of  Israel  into 
bondage. 

Chandos,  standing  where  he  had  risen,  heard  in  silence,  his 
teeth  chnched  on  his  under  lip  till  the  blood  started  among  th^ 
golden  luxuriance  of  his  beard,  and  his  breath  came  slow, 
loud,  and  stertoi'ously. 

"Best  thing  that  can  be  done  with  it  for  you,'*  went  on 
Trevenna,  standing  at  ease  there,  with  his  hands  behind  his 
back,  and  in  his  whole  attitude  the  insolence  of  a  coarse  tri- 
umph more  legibly  spoken  than  he  knew.  *'  There  may  be  a 
surplus  if  it  sell  well,  and  of  course  that  will  come  to  you.  I 
don't  think  there  can  be  much;  but  still  something,  ever  so 
little,  if  it's  only  just  as  much  as  you  used  to  give  for  an  act- 
ress's bracelet,  of  course  we  shall  be  glad  if  we  can  save  foi 
you  now.  I  suspect  the  building  idea  will  be  very  profitable; 
there  are  always  such  a  lot  of  builders  ready  to  rush  at  a  new 
place;  and  when  the  villas  spring  up  like  mushrooms,  and  the 
lodging-houses  grow  thick,  1  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  Claren- 
cieux  beats  Ventnor.  By  Jove!  what  would  the  last  marquis 
have  said  if  he'd  foreseen  bricks  and  mortar  invading  his 
mighty  Druidic  woods?'* 

Still  Chandos  said  nothing;  his  eyes  never  left  their  gaze  at 
Trevenna,  but  there  was  rising  in  them  darker  and  darker  that 
look  which  the  Hanoverian  nobles  had  seen  in  the  eyes  of  the 
last  marquis  when  he  had  sent  them  from  his  Tower  cell,  with 
a  single  syllable,  like  lashed  ciu's. 

"  But  what  I  came  to  ask  you,  my  dear  Chandos,"  pursued 


CHANDOS.  247 

his  tormentor,  "  was.  What  will  you  dor  What  is  your  fut- 
ure to  be?" 

Still  no  word  of  answer  escaped  Chandos;  and  Trevenna's 
glance  meeting  his,  his  pitiless  pursuer  thought,  "  Small  need 
to  ask.  Before  another  three  months  are  out,  he  will  be  rav- 
ing mad  in  some  lunatic  ward." 

"  You  must  do  something,''  continued  Trevenna,  with  a 
kick  to  the  silver  andirons.  "  You  have  not  the  worth  of  one 
of  those  fire-dogs  now.  If  you  had  listened  to  me,  you  might 
have  been  living  comfortably  abroad,  with  the  Lily  Queen  to 
console  you;  but  you  wouldn't.  You  chose  '  honor.'  Now, 
honor  don't  give  us  bread  and  cheese.  It's  quite  a  paurician 
luxury,  and  I  can  assure  you  you'll  never  get  your  salt  out  of 
it.  There  a'n't  anything  the  world  pays  so  badly;  you  see, 
there  a'n't  any  demand  for  it!  What's  to  be  done?  To  be 
sure,  you  write;  but  now  you're  down  in  the  world,  tres  cher, 
I'm  sadly  afraid  your  books  will  go  down  in  the  world  too, 
vind  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if  the  critics  find  you  ini- 
moral.  They  always  do,  unless  a  writer  gives  'em  good  din- 
ners; they  always  shy  that  stone,  unless  their  hands  are  filled 
with  a  claret-jug.  Besides,  as  Scott  says,  '  literature's  a  good 
crutch,  but  a  sorry  staff,'  unless  you  cant  in  it;  and  I  don't 
suppose  you'd  ever  cant,  not  if  you  were  living  on  a  loaf  in  a 
garret?" 

Still  there  was  no  answer  to  him;  only  the  gleam  in  his 
dilated  eyes  grew  blacker  as  Chandos  heard. 

*'  Literature,  of  course,  you  can  turn  back  to,"  resumed 
Trevenna,  too  appreciative  of  the  satisfaction  he  enjoyed,  and 
too  absorbed  in  his  ingenuity  at  stretching  every  pulley  and 
turning  every  screw  of  the  rack  he  had  his  prey  stretched  on, 
to  note  how  dangerous  a  pastime  he  had  chosen.  "  But  I  fear 
you  won't  be  much  able  to  write  at  present.  Meanwhile,  of 
course  Warburne  will  be  open  to  you;  but  I  suppose  you  wiil 
hardly  care  to  live  there,  a  hanger-on  upon  your  mother's 
family.  Forgive  me  if  I  speak  bluntly.  I  mean  well.  "What 
remains?  You  can  say  with  truth,  if  ever  nobody  could,  '  I 
can  not  work,  to  beg  I  am  ashamed. '  To  be  sure,  the  coun- 
try—the Cabinet— would  give  you  some  post,  perhaps,  out  of 
respect  to  the  great  minister's  name;  but,  on  my  life,  unless 
it's  to  choose  pictures  for  the  nation,  or  to  preside  over  a 
competitive  examination  of  pretty  women  for  the  palm  of 
beauty,  I  don't  know  any  public  office  for  which  you've 
fcniinccl!  You're  an  Epicurean,  and  there's  no  room  for 
£picureans  in  these  busy,  practical  days.  Your  pride,  your 
Doco-curantisra,  your  art-fancies,  your  fashionable  caprices, 


218  CHANDOS. 

were  thought  charming  by  the  world,  my  clear  Ernest,  while 
you  were  rich  and  were  its  idol;  but  I  am  sadly  afraid,  now 
that  you're  a  sold-up  bankrupt,  the  world  won't  care  to  give 
3'ou  back  your  very  good  dinners,  and  will  tell  you,  like  Job's 
friends,  that  the  best  thing  you  can  do  to  please  them  is  to 
*  curse  God  and  die. ' " 

He  had  gone  one  step  too  far.  As  the  lion-tamer  amuses 
himself  with  goading  and  insulting  the  fallen  monarch  that 
lies  chained  before  him,  till  he  forgets  that  the  desert-blood  if 
still  there,  and  in  incautious  insolence  tampers  and  stings  or.ti 
moment  too  long,  until  the  captive  king,  with  a  single  leap, 
clears  his  barrier  and  breaks  his  bonds,  and  avenges  his  in- 
juries with  the  old  desert-might,  so  Trevenna  had  played  for 
one  moment  too  protracted  with  the  man  he  tortured.  Vi  ith 
a  spring  light  and  long  as  a  deer's,  unerring  and  irresistible 
as  a  leopard's,  Chandos  threw  himself  on  him,  one  hand  grt.sp- 
ing  his  shoulder,  the  other  twisted  tight  in  the  linen  at  his 
throat,  and  silently,  with  a  resistless  force,  strong  as  steel  to 
clasp,  thrust  him  downward  across  the  painted  cabinet  toward 
the  door,  his  height  above  the  low  square  form  of  Trevenna 
like  a  Greek  god's  above  a  faun's. 

"  To-night  at  least  this  house  is  mine.  If  it  were  not  that 
I  have  benefited  you,  if  it  were  not  that  you  are  too  vile  to  be 
avenged  on,  you  should  not  leave  me  with  life  in  you — yoii 
mocker,  liar,  traitor,  you  foul  tempter  who  sold  your  friend!" 

The  words  were  uttered  low  in  his  throat,  yet  so  distinct 
that  every  syllable  in  them  vibrated  on  the  other's  ear;  and, 
powerless,  breathless,  deprived  of  all  his  strength  and  all  his 
self-possession  by  the  amaze  that  seized  him  and  by  the  force 
that  hurled  him  out,  Trevenna  was  thrust  passive  and  without 
answer  through  the  door-way  of  the  Greuze  cabinet,  and  flung 
down  on  to  the  floor  of  the  corridor  without. 

The  door  closed,  barring  him  out.  He  rose,  livid  with  rage, 
and  passionately  bitter  that  in  one  moment  of  thoughtless  self- 
indulgence  he  should  have  undone  the  caution  and  the  acumen 
of  so  many  years  and  betrayed  the  carefully  veiled  secret  of  his 
hate.  Yet,  as  he  shook  himself,  jarred  but  unbruised  by  the 
fall  on  the  yielding  velvet  carpets,  he  smiled  in  a  contemptu- 
ous triumph,  a  compensative  satisfaction:  he  had  what  life 
could  never  take  from  him — his  vengeance. 

"  The  last  exercise  of  your  droits  de  seignenr,  my  beggared 
Lord  of  Olarencieux,"  he  thought,  content,  though  angered 
at  himself.  "  You  won't  find  any  one  2)ut  up  with  your  j^ride 
now.  You  are  bitter;  yes,  I  dare  say  y^ou  are  bitter;  but  all 
your  misery  won't  prevent  this  haughty  castle  going  to  tht 


CHANDOS.  349 

hammer,  and  one  day  or  other  you  shall  see  me  in  it!  Whea 
I  do  come,  PJl  light  my  first  fire  with  my  Lord  Marquis's 
Kneller  picture,  and  I'll  build  my  kennels  with  the  pounded 
dust  of  Philip  Chaudos's  statue!" 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    FEW   WHO    WERE   FAITHFUL. 

The  morning  came — a  beautiful  summer  morning,  witL  its 
light  on  the  sea,  and  its  west  wind  blowing  over  the  limitless 
blossoms  of  acres  on  acres  of  lilies  of  the  valley  and  of  wild 
dog-roses  that  filled  the  forest-glades  with  fragrance  and  made 
their  dewy  couches  for  the  deer  and  their  perfumed  shelter  for 
the  earth-nesting  birds.  The  earliest  rays  glancing  in  to  the 
painted  cabinet  found  Chandos  sitting  there  as  he  had  sat  all 
the  night  through;  he  had  never  stirred:  now  and  then  his 
head  had  sunk  forward  on  his  breast,  and  the  sleep  of  the 
opiate  had  fallen  on  him  for  an  hour,  heavy,  dreamless,  merci- 
ful, insomuch  as  it  annihilated  thought;  at  all  other  times  he 
sat  motionless,  save  once  or  twice  when  he  drank  off  great 
foods  of  iced  water  or  brimming  draughts  of  brandy,  looking 
outward  at  all  he  loved  so  passionately,  at  all  he  had  lost  forever. 

With  that  single  roused  action  toward  his  traitor,  all  revival 
of  sense  or  movement  seemed  to  have  ebbed  out  again  in  him. 
He  sat  dulling  his  senses  to  insensibility  with  the  nicotine,  but 
never  dulling  with  it  the  pangs  that  eat  at  his  heart,  as  the 
vulture  at  Prometheus's. 

Treveima  had  not  made  a  wide  nor  an  unlikely  guess  when 
he  had  thought  to  himself  that  the  end  of  the  brilliant  career 
he  had  so  brutally  and  lustfully  envied  would  be  a  mad-house. 

The  joys  of  Chandos  had  been  vivid  and  unshadowed  above 
all  other  men's;  his  suffering  was  proportionate.  The  very 
nature  which  had  rendered  his  pleasures  so  perfect  in  the  days 
that  were  gone,  now  only  seemed  to  render  his  torture  ten. 
thousand-fold  more  acute.  The  opiate  drugged  his  brain  and 
his  senses,  but  it  could  not  drug  the  mortal  anguish  that  never 
for  one  moment  would  be  still. 

He  never  noticed  the  rising  of  the  day,  he  never  saw  the  sun 
grow  brighter  and  higher  in  the  east;  he  knew  nothing;  his 
eyes  only  fastened  with  a  look  that  never  left  them  on  the  sea 
and  the  woodland,  and  all  the  forest  beauty  that  had  been  his 
so  long,  that  never  now  would  be  his  own  again.  Couched  at 
his  feet  the  dog  Beau  Sire  lay,  stirless  through  the  day  and 
night,  lifting  his  head  now  and  then  with  a  low  moan;  the 
brute  was  faithful  where  the  hand  he  had  filled  with  gifts  and 


250  rHAN"DOS. 

benefits  numberless  as  the  sands  of  theseahadturnedagaiusthim. 
All  was  very  still.  Trevenna,  with  the  creditors  and  law- 
yers, had  left  in  the  jiast  night;  the  men  whom  they  placed  in 
charge  had  been  enjoined  to  show  the  strictest  respect  for  his 
privacy.  The  household — among  them  old  people  who  had 
known  the  great  minister's  youth  and  had  idolized  his  heir 
from  the  cradle — were  dumb  and  paralyzed  with  amazement 
and  with  grief;  none  of  them  dared  venture  near  him.  Noth- 
ing roused  him  from  his  stupor — the  stu^^or  in  which  the  brain., 
the  more  finely  it  be  organized,  the  more  vividly  it  imagines, 
and  the  more  exquisitely  it  creates,  the  more  fatally  stilJ  will 
lose  its  reason  and  perish  in  delirium  or  in  vacuity.  Ignatius 
Mathias  was  not  in  error  when  he  had  thought  that  his  task- 
master's work  was  worse  than  murder.  The  sliarp  ringing 
shot,  the  certain  mortal  stab  of  the  assassin  would  have  been 
mercy  to  it.  But  Trevenna  was  too  wise  and  too  ingenious  for 
those;  he  slew  more  slowly,  and  he  kept  within  the  law. 

As  the  noon  was  hiah,  and  the  sunlight  without  shadow 
across  the  breadths  of  grass-land  in  the  hush  in  which  the  song- 
birds ceased,  and  even  the  busy  wild  pigeons  rested  on  the  wing, 
the  slow  sullen  tramp  of  the  steps  of  many  men  came  on  the 
stillness,  echoing  dully  on  the  road  of  the  western  avenue  that 
swept  round  by  the  western  wing  in  which  the  Greuze  room 
was.  The  soHd,  measured  beating  of  the  many  feet  did  not 
awake  him  from  his  apathy  of  drugged  unconsciousness;  the 
noise  of  the  irregular  marching  of  varied  steps  as  they  crushed 
the  ground  beneath  the  woven  boughs  of  the  arched  aisles  of 
beech  and  chestnut  did  not  reach  his  ear.  The  men  came  oa 
to  pass  round  the  castle  to  the  front;  they  were  men  of  all 
ages  and  of  different  ranks,  but  well-nigh  all  of  the  same  type, 
the  type  of  the  two  classes  of  Old  England  whom  she  never 
hears  the  name  of  now — the  yeoman  and  the  peasantry;  the 
fair,  florid,  blue-eyed,  broad-shouldered,  bull-dog  type  of  what 
were  once  her  franklins  and  her  eorlmen,  that  now — here  and 
there  fast  fading  out — are  still  her  tenant-farmers  and  her 
country  cotters,  still  reap  her  yellow  harvests,  and  still  live  in 
the  green  shadow  of  her  woods. 

They  came  on  very  slowly,  their  heads  bent,  their  heavy 
steps  dragging  with  a  weary,  melancholy  effort.  They  came 
as  they  had  followed  the  bier  of  Philip  Chandos,  as  they  would 
have  followed  the  funeral  of  his  son. 

They  had  learned  that  a  worse  thing  than  death  had  fallen 
on  Clarencieux.  They  moved  v,'ith  a  certain  solemnity  and 
dignity,  rough  and  various  as  the  men  were  in  person  and  de- 
gree; for  one  emotion  was  upon  them  all,  and  a  profound 


CHAN-DOS.  251 

grief  lent  its  sanctity,  almost  its  majesty,  to  the  weather-beaten 
faces  on  which  the  wai'mth  of  the  early  summer  shone  down 
through  the  leaves,  and  to  the  stalwart  stature  and  the  bent 
frames  which  were  side  by  side  as  age  and  youth,  as  the  tenant 
of  tliousands  of  acres  and  the  peasant  who  lived  in  a  sheeling, 
advanced  together  in  a  long  line  up  the  double  avenue. 

At  tlieir  head,  walking  alone,  was  a  very  old  man  of  mo- 
than  eiglity-five  years;  his  form  gnarled  and  tough  as  one  l' 
the  oaks  of  the  deer-forest;  his  white  hair  on  his  shouldeid 
like  one  of  the  jDatriarchs  of  Israel;  his  face  tanned  to  a  ruddy 
brown,  that  no  near  approach  of  death  could  pale.  He  leaned 
heavily  on  an  elm  staff,  and  the  lines  in  his  still-comely  face 
were  deep-set  as  though  his  own  plow  had  riven  them. 

As  they  paced  near,  the  loud  swelling  noise  of  their  march- 
ing smote  dully  on  the  hushed  noontide.  At  last  it  reached 
the  ear  of  Chandos;  he  raised  his  head,  heavy  with  the  opium- 
fumes,  and  saw  them.  He  knew  tliem,  every  man  of  them; 
he  had  known  them  from  the  earliest  moment  when  every 
creature  on  the  broad  lands  of  Clarencieuxhad  striven  with  all 
the  loving  loyalty  of  feudal  affection  to  do  their  best  to  please 
and  to  amuse  the  golden-haired  young  child  of  the  great  house 
of  Clarencieux. 

Tlie  sight  roused  him  in  an  instant,  breaking  away  the 
mists,  dissipating  the  lethargy  gradually  settling  on  his  brain. 

"Oh,  my  God !  *'  he  moaned,  aloud ; '  'and  they  must  suffer  too !'' 

Not  alone  could  he  bear  his  burden;  not  alone  could  his  fate 
strike  him;  it  would  crush  others  in  his  fall,  remove  the  land- 
mark of  the  fatherless,  drive  out  the  old  man  from  his  lifelong 
hearth,  send  the  worn-out  peasant  from  the  cottage  hearth- 
stone that  had  been  his  so  long,  and  fell  the  green,  glad  wel- 
come of  the  forests  that  the  fathers'  fathers  of  the  most  aged 
there  had  known  and  loved  as  familiar  and  venerable  things. 

He  had  thought  of  them  before,  thought  often  of  all  who 
must  suffer  through  him;  of  the  retainers  made  homeless  in 
their  old  age;  of  the  tenants  given  over  to  hard  hands;  of  tlie 
men  who  had  lived  on  those  lands  from  their  birth,  like  their 
fathers  before  them,  condemned  to  see  their  roof-trees  sold  be- 
fore their  sight,  and  to  be  driven  across  the  western  seas  to 
seek  now  homes,  when  tlaey  had  had  no  other  wish  save  to  be 
laid  in  peace  beside  their  people  in  the  familiar  graves  beneath 
their  village  spire.  He  had  thought  of  them;  no  pain  could 
make  him  selQsh;  but  he  had  never  thought  of  them  as  he 
thought  now  when  the  three  hundred  south-countrymen  who 
held  his  fiefs,  large  or  small,  came  up  in  the  noontide  through 
tlie  western  avenue.     Involuntarily  he  rose;    thev  saw  him 


253  cnANDOS. 

and  paused  before  the  opened  casement  on  the  broad  stretch 
of  turf,  all  checkered  with  the  shadows  of  the  crossed  branches. 
The  oriels  reached  nearly  to  the  ground;  he  was  as  much  in 
their  presence  as  though  they  had  entered  tlie  building,  and 
that  which  they  came  to  say.  seemed  best  spoken  under  the 
summer  freedom  of  the  sky.  "With  the  same  unanimous 
movement  as  his  creditors  they  uncovered  to  a  man,  standing 
with  as  much  reverence  before  the  ruined  bankrupt  as  they 
had  stood  before  the  Lord  of  Clarencieux.  The  sun  shone 
clear  upon  his  face,  and  at  what  they  read  there — the  change 
so  unutterable  that  a  few  days  had  sufficed  to  work — they  were 
silenced  with  as  unspeakable  a  horror.  They  knew  then  that 
this  thing  of  which  they  had  heard  was  true. 

The  old  man  who  stood  at  their  head  advanced  slightly.  He 
was  their  spokesman,  who  had  rented  and  farmed  the  greenest 
lands  of  Clarencieux,  and  had  lived  under  tiie  same  broad 
thatch-roof  as  his  ancestors  had  dwelt  under  since  days  beyond 
their  memory,  when  the  Chandos  had  been  peers,  and  had 
marched  with  their  brother-barons  to  win  at  the  sword's  point 
the  chartered  liberties  of  England.  He  was  a  brave  and 
stanch  old  patriarch,  holding  himself  jDroudly  as  any  Saxon 
thane,  yet  loyal  to  the  house  he  loved,  as  the  Chandos  had  been 
loyal  to  their  Plantagenet  kinsmen  and  to  their  Stuart  kings. 

He — by  name  HaroJd  Gelart — stood  forward,  his  white  hair 
floating  in  the  soft  west  wind. 

'*'  My  lord  "  (the  owner  of  Clarencieux  had  been  their  lord 
to  all  the  yeomen  on  the  lands  since  that  unforgotten,  unfor- 
given  day  when  the  Hanover  boor  had  slaughtered  in  cold 
blood  their  last  marquis),  "  my  lord,  is  this  thing  truer'' 

Harold  Gelart  could  not  have  put  into  clear  words  the  shame 
and  misery  which  he  had  heard  had  come  to  Clarencieux. 

Chandos  bowed  his  head. 

The  dense  throng  gathered  under  the  leafy  shadow  of  the 
elms  moved  with  a  shuddering,  swaying  motion.  Against  all 
witness  they  had  disbelieved  it  till  they  should  hear  its  utter- 
IMCQ  from  his  own  lips.  Its  blow  to  him  was  scarcely  less 
than  was  its  blow  to  them. 

The  Id  farmer  bent  over  his  elm  staff  as  though  the  shock  that 
had  been  so  deadly  to  him  in  the  past  night  smote  him  afresh. 

"  Will  the  lands  be  scld?" 

His  voice  was  hoarse,  and  panted  slowly  out,  and  he  covered 
his  face  as  he  asked  it.  To  liim  it  was  such  unutterable 
shame,  such  insupportable  disgrace,  to  speak  such  words  to 
the  son  of  Philip  Chandos,  to  their  beloved  and  hon^ied  favor- 
ite, who  had  been  with  them,  and  been  dear  to  them,  from  the 


CHANDOS.  253 

first  days  of  his  bright  childhoocl.  Chandos  bowed  his  a«sent 
once  more.  Speech  would  not  come  to  him,  and  none  was 
needed  as  they  looked  upon  his  face. 

They  were  strangely,  ter<ribly  still — that  mass  of  toil-worn, 
air-freshened,  stalwart  men,  whose  strength  could  have 
wrecked  Clarencieux  from  terrace  to  turret,  had  they  hated  its 
beauty  with  Trevenna's  hate.  What  they  heard,  might  drive 
any  or  all  of  them  out  to  new  homes,  might  consign  them  to 
aew  and  pitiless  dealers,  might  level  the  homesteads  they  cher- 
ished, and  might  ruin  them  in  many  fatal  and  unlooked-for 
ways.  But  in  this  moment  it  was  not  of  themselves  they 
thought;  it  was  for  the  great  house  that  had  fallen — ^for  the 
dispossessed  lord  who  stood  before  them. 

Harold  Gelart,  the  oldest  among  them,  and  elected  their 
embassador,  a  man  of  few  words,  tough  in  his  mold  as  any 
oak  that  stood  the  shock  of  the  sea-storms,  yet  tender  at  heart 
as  any  sapling  fresh  in  its  first  green  leaf,  lifted  his  head, 
while  great  drops  welled  slowly  out  of  his  aged  eyes,  and  dowa 
the  sunburned  furrows  of  his  face. 

"If  it  had  pleased  tlie  Almighty  God  to  have  laid  me  in  my 
grave  before  tliis  day!" 

It  was  the  only  moan  that  escaped  the  brave  old  yeoman. 
The  honor  of  his  "  lords  "  had  been  his  honor,  their  fame  his 
fame;  loyalty  to  them  had  been  one,  in  his  simple  creed,  with 
loyalty  to  his  God;  and  though  he  knew  not  but  that  the  old 
moated  ivy-hidden  grange,  v/here  he  and  his  had  dwelt  so  long 
in  peace,  might  be  sold  above  his  head  and  new  landlords  eject 
him  to  find  a  fresh  resting-place  m  his  last  years,  no  syllable 
would  ever  have  escaped  him  to  add  a  blow  to  the  misery  that 
had  fallen  upon  Clarencieux. 

Chandos  looked  at  him,  and  at  the  crowd  that  gathered  so 
mutely  under  the  elms;  and  the  icy,  stony  rigidity,  the  almost 
senseless  stupor,  which  had  been  upon  his  features,  changed 
and  softened  as  it  had  done  at  the  dead  d ulceus  words.  He 
had  known  those  furrowed,  bronzed  faces  ever  since  his  young- 
est years;  he  had  seen  them  gather  round  him  in  loyal  attach- 
ment on  every  anniversary  of  his  birth,  at  every  return  to  his 
home,  at  every  Christmas-tide  that  he  liad  been  among  them. 
They  were  familiar  to  hiin  as  the  venerable  trees  beneath  which 
they  stood;  and  he  knew  that  they  and  he  met  for  the  last  time. 

"  My  friends,^'  he  said,  gently  (and  his  voice  had  not  the 
composure  with  which  he  Had  addressed  throughout  his  credit- 
ors, but  shook  slightly),  "  the  worst  that  you  can  hear  is  true. 
You  and  I  must  i)art — forever.  I  hope  that  my  fate  may  not 
recoil  on  you;  but  it  is  too  likely  you  may  suffer  through  me. 


254  CHAKDOS. 

I  have  been  blind  and  mad.  Forgive  me  that  I  thought  too 
little  of  all  I  owed  my  heritage/^ 

The  words  reached  the  furthest  that  stood  on  the  outskirts 
of  tlie  throng,  hollow  and  feeble  though  the  once  rich  music 
of  his  tones  was  now.  A  single  sound,  like  one  deep,  vast  sob, 
shook  the  crowd  as  they  heard.  They  loved  him  well  for  his 
own  sake,  for  his  father's  sake,  for  the  sake  of  his  great  name  and 
race,  that  had  been  part  and  share  of  their  own  honor  for  so  long. 

Harold  Gelart  lifted  his  white  head,  like  the  head  of  a  feaxon 
franklin,  and  spoke,  with  the  broad,  marked  dialect  of  the 
"outhern  sea-board  steeping  his  words  in  its  accent: 

"  My  lord,  we  aren't  here  to  reproach  of  you;  you  have 
done  what  you  will  with  your  own.  We  are  come  to  tender  you 
our  loyalty,  to  say  a  few  words  to  you,  an  you  will. " 

The  old  patriarch,  whose  life  was  spent  amidst  the  woods 
and  fields,  whose  rising  and  going  to  rest  were  with  the  larks 
of  his  corn-lands,  found  words  with  difficulty.  His  speech 
was  ever  laconic,  and  little  above  a  peasant's;  and  the  most 
silver-tongued  orator  would  have  found  utterance  hard  under 
such  grief  as  that  he  choked  down  now. 

"  Speak  on,"  said  Chandos,  gently  still.  He  knew  that,  bit- 
terly as  they  tortured  him,  they  came  there  out  of  love  for  him. 

"  My  lord,  it  is  just  this— no  more,"  said  the  old  man; 
while  the  broad  provincialism  of  his  county-tone  gave  a  rough, 
imploring  earnestness,  beyond  all  oratory,  to  his  words.  '*  You 
tell  us  the  lands  must  go;  we  have  heard  yesternight  that  a 
sore  and  wicked  thing  have  befell  you;  it  don't  need  to  speak 
on  it,  it's  too  bitter  in  all  our  teeth;  and  them  as  has  wrought 
it  on  you,  may  the  vengeance  of  God  overtakel" 

Chandos  stayed  him  with  a  gesture. 

"No!  to  pray  that  were  to  call  a  curse  on  me.  I  but  reap 
the  harvest  of  my  own  utter  madness." 

Harold  Gelart's  eyes  flashed  with  a  fire  that  age  could  not 
wholly  dim,  and  he  struck  his  elm  staff  down  into  the  turf 
with  mighty  force. 

"  Where  be  them  that  never  warned  you?  Where  be  them 
that  feasted  at  your  cost?  Where  be  them  that  knew  all  was 
rotting  under  you,  and  never  spoke  the  word  that  might  have 
saved  you  in  good  time?  Where  be  them  ?  Let  their  guilt 
find  them  out!" 

There  was  a  rude  grandeur  in  the  passionate  imprecation, 
as  the  old  man  raised  his  bead  and  looked  upward  at  Claren- 
cieux,  where  the  colossal  walls  towered  above  him  as  though 
marking  the  vengeance  of  the  great  dead  who  had  reigned 
there.     Then  he  t-irned  his  eyes  on  Chandoa 


OHANDOS.'  255 

"I  ask  pardon,  my  lord;  I  feel  dazed-like  with  the  misery! 
What  we  come  to  say  to  you  is  only  this.  We  hear  a  power  of 
money  is  wanted:  if  the  money  was  forthcoming  any  other 
way,  the  lands  would  be  safer  We  fancy  so:  we  don't  know 
much;  but  we  guess  that.  Now  we  aren't  rich  men,  none 
of  us;  but,  put  together,  we're  worth  summat.  We've  saved 
a  good  bit,  most  of  us;  and,  clubbed  together,  it  will  make  a 
bigger  sum  than  may  be  anybody'd  think.  Now,  my  lord,  we 
don't  mean  no  offense;,  we've  lived  under  you  and  yours  all 
our  lives,  and  we  love  you  like  as  if  you  was  our  king.  Now 
will  you  let  us  pay  the  money?  We'll  clear  the  lands,  any- 
how; we'll  clear  summat,  at  least  as  far  as  it'll  go.  We'll 
give  every  penny  we  can  scrape  together;  and  we'll  bless  you 
for  using  of  it,  as  we  used  to  bless  your  father's  name  when, 
let  state  and  grandeur  load  him  ever  so,  he  never  forgot  us. 
Take  it  as  we  give  it,  ri^ht  down  with  all  our  hearts;  there 
a'n't  a  man  among  us  but  what  would  go  content,  and  feed 
with  his  dogs,  and  fodder  with  his  cattle,  to  know  that  he'd 
been  of  ever  such  a  littlest  bit  of  help  in  saving  you  and  sav- 
ing Clarencieux!'* 

Harold  Gelart  paused — his  voice  shaken  and  stifled;  the 
drops  streaming  unbidden,  like  a  woman's,  down  his  withered 
cheeks,  in  the  passionate  earnestness  his  errand  lent  him. 
Never,  in  all  the  years  of  his  tongh,  sun-tanned,  wind-beaten, 
healthy,vigorous  life  had  such  a  weakness  been  wrung  from  him. 

From  the  yeomen  and  peasant-throng  a  murmur  came  such 
as  that  whicii  the  speech  of  the  dealer  had  roused  in  the  por- 
phyry chamber,  but  louder,  bolder,  rough,  and  honest,  with 
the  simple  warmth  of  those  who  gave  it.  It  was  the  ratifica- 
tion by  every  man  present  of  the  words  and  of  the  offer  of  their 
spokesman.  Every  man  there  bent  his  head,  as  they  bent  it 
entering  their  woodland  church;  so,  silently,  they  registered 
their  adhesion  to  his  promise. 

Chandos  stood  and  heard.  A  strange  alteration  passed  over 
his  face;  all  its  frozen  calm  changed;  for  the  first  time  since 
the  night  that  he  had  learned  his  doom,  the  blood  rushed  back 
in  a  hot  flush  over  his  features;  he  quivered  through  all  his 
frame,  as  if  they  had  struck  iiim  some  heavy-weighted  physi 
cal  blow.     He  was  silent. 

At  his  silence,  the  throng  stretching  far  away  under  the 
elm-glades  before  him  surged  nearer  by  one  impulse;  every 
unit  of  that  swaying  mass  pressed  forward  to  jjledga  his  sin- 
cerity and  tlie  willingness  of  his  gift,  and  fi'om  their  throats, 
to  a  man,  one  shout  broke: 


256  CHANDOS. 

"  My  lord!  take  it— take  it,  and  buy  back  the  lands!  What 
fs  ours  is  your'u!" 

"Ay,  ay!"  swore  the  stanch  old  Gelart,  while  with  his 
brown,  horny  hand  he  dashed  back  the  salt  from  his  lids. 
"  And  only  just  reckoning,  too.  What  was  your'n  have  been 
ever  free  to  us  in  your  days  and  iu  your  forefathers';  no  soul 
was  ever  pressed,  no  soul  ever  hungered,  no  soul  ever  pined, 
on  these  lands.     What  is  ours  is  your'n!" 

Chandos  was  silent  still.  The  change  on  his  face  grew 
softer,  warmer,  better,  with  each  moment;  the  vacant  lethargy 
of  the  opiate  cleared  more  and  more  away  from  his  senses; 
but  his  head  was  sunk  upon  his  chest,  and  for  the  first  time 
since  his  ruin  had  been  known  to  him  tears  had  gathered  in 
his  eyes  and  fell  slowly  one  by  one.  The  loyalty  showed  to 
him  moved  him  as  insult  and  as  anguish  had  had  no  power  to 
do;  the  rain  of  those  bitter  tears  saved  him  from  madness. 

He  stood  back  in  the  shadow,  so  that  his  face  was  concealed 
from  them;  the  weakness  he  could  not  for  the  instant  control 
wrung  his  pride  and  wrung  his  heart;  with  the  warmer  grati- 
tude and  emotion  that  their  generous  fealty  brought  him  was 
blended  the  shameful  misery  that  he — the  last  Chandos  of  Clar- 
eucieux — should  ever  stand  thus  before  the  tenants  of  his 
lands.  Their  love  touched  him  with  an  intense  pain  that  he 
should  ever  have  tried  and  proved  it  thus. 

They  mistook  his  silence,  and  the  movement  with  which  he 
involuntarily  drew  back  into  the  gloom  of  the  Greuze  cham- 
ber, for  offense;  and  their  spokesman,  Gelart,  pressed  slightly 
nearer,  laying  hold,  in  his  earnestness,  of  the  oak  framework 
of  the  oriel, 

"  My  lord,  it  sounds  bold  and  coarse,  may  be,  as  I  puts  it, 
for  we  to  come  bringing  our  money  to  you,  but  it  a'n't  meant 
so;  we  come  out  o'  love  and  loyalty  to  you — just  out  o'  that. 
Your  house  have  been  our  glory  and  our  friend;  we  can^t 
a-bear  to  see  it  fall  and  not  to  heave  a  shoulder  to  its  prop. 
Leastways,  my  lord,  if  you'll  just  let  us  save  the  lands;  we 
sha'n't  be  a-doing  it  for  you;  we  shall  only  be  let  to  save  our- 
selves from  new  masters,  nothing  more.  The  eharity'll  be  to  us. " 

The  old  yeoman  was  rude  in  speech  and  tough  in  fiber,  but 
a  true  inherent  delicacy  lived  in  iiim  for  all  that;  he  strove  as 
far  as  his  powers  could  to  put  the  service  they  came  to  render 
in  the   guise  of  a  service  permitted  them  to  aid  themselves. 

Chandos  came  forward,  and  took  the  old  man's  brown 
hands  iti  his,  and  pressed  them  silently:  words  were  very  hard 
to  him  to  utter  then. 

"  My  friends,'^  he  said,  unsteadily,  while  his  voice  vibrated 


CHANDOS.  •  J857 

on  the  quiet  of  the  sunny  summer  day,  "  thank  you,  I  can  not; 
such  service  as  you  would  render  me  is  not  to  be  recompensed 
by  any  gratitude.  If  I  could  take  a  debt  from  any  man,  1 
would  take  one  from  you.  But  were  I  to  stooja  so  low  as  to  rob 
you  of  your  earnings  to  arrest  my  ruin,  you  would  be  right  to 
deny  that  I  could  ever  be  the  son  of  Philip  Chandos.'^ 

A  perplexed,  piteous  pain  cast  its  shadow  over  the  honest, 
ruddy  faces  upon  which  he  looked;  some  perception  of  hia 
meaning,  some  sense  that  could  he  take  their  offer  he  would 
be  no  longer  what  the  men  of  his  race  had  ever  been,  stole  on 
them.  They  would  have  given  their  lives  for  him  in  that 
hour;  and  they  had  some  faint  knowledge  that  he  was  right — 
that  his  acceptance  of  what  they  tendered,  in  all  the  cordial 
singleness  of  their  hearts,  would  stain  the  man  they  came  to 
save  more  deeply  than  his  calamity.     Old  Gelart  lifted  his  eyes. 

"  Master,  master,"  he  whispered,  hoarsely,  "  it  would  be 
to  save  his  name,  Iit's  lands.     I  think  he'd  V  let  us  do  it.*' 

The  yeoman  had  been  of  the  same  years  with  the  great 
minister,  and  had  loved  and  honored  him  with  all  a  vassal's 
feudal  strength.     Chandos  shivered  at  his  words. 

"Jso,"  he  said,  gently — though  in  his  voice  there  was  aa 
accent  that  pierced  the  hearts  of  the  listening  crowd.  '*  I  have 
dishonored  him  enough:  as  I  have  sown,  so  I  reap;  it  must  be 
60.  Yet,  because  I  refuse  you,  do  not  think  me  dead  to  all  your 
love— senseless  to  all  your  fidelity.  We  shall  never  meet 
again;  but  to  my  dying  day  I  shall  never  forget  you — never 
cease  to  honor  and  to  thank  you." 

A  mighty  sob,  like  the  wrung-out  moan  of  a  giant,  shook 
the  whole  throng  like  otie  man.  They  had  heard  from  hia 
own  voice  the  fiat  of  farewell;  they  had  learned  from  his  own 
5ps  that  the  doom  of  Clarencieux  was  sealed,  that  they  an-d 
the  race  they  honored  would  be  severed  for  evermore. 

They  looked  upon  his  face  in  as  eternal  a  parting  as  the 
strong  bold  men  who  had  dwelt  upon  his  lands  and  fought 
under  his  standard  had  looked  upon  the  face  of  the  last  mar- 
quis when  he  had  ridden  forth  to  join  the  rallying — ridden 
forth  never  to  return.     And  they  wept  sorely,  like  women. 

The  length  of  the  summer  hours  passed,  the  shadows  of  the 
clouds  sweeping  over  the  breezy  uplands,  the  swathes  of 
scythed  grass,  the  golden  gorse  of  the  moors  sloping  to  the 
sea,  and  the  swelling  woods  of  the  deer-forests.  A  fairer  day 
had  never  dawned  and  closed  on  Clarencieux.  Far  in  the  dis- 
tance a  white  s£aI  glided  in  the  oflhig;  the  stags  couched 
«lumberiug  under  tlie  umbrageous  ghelter  of  the  green-wood 
a 


258  CHAN-DOS. 

aisles;  the  brooks  marniured  their  incessant  song  of  joy,  bub- 
bling through  the  maidenhair  and  beneath  the  wild-rose 
boughs;  its  beauty  had  never  been  more  beautiful. 

Like  the  youth  whom  the  ancient  Mexican  world  decked 
with  roses,  and  led  out  in  his  loveliness  in  the  light  of  the 
sun,  ere  the  knife  of  the  priestly  slaughterer  laid  his  dead 
iimbs  to  be  severed  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  the  lands  stretched 
smiling  in  the  warmth,  unshadowed  by  the  doom  that  would 
dismember  and  destroy  them. 

To  part  from  them  forever! — easier  to  lower  the  life  best 
loved  within  the  darkness  of  the  grave,  easier  to  lie  down  in 
the  fullness  of  youth  and  die,  easier  to  suffer  all  that  the 
world  can  hold  of  suffering,  than  to  leave  the  birthright  every 
memory  has  hallowed,  every  thought  cherished,  every  child- 
hood's love  endeared,  every  pride  and  honor  of  manhood  cen- 
tered in,  and  the  one  mad  ruin  of  an  Esau's  barter  lost. 

The  night  was  down — with  the  shine  of  the  stars  on  the  sea, 
and  the  call  of  the  deer  on  the  silence,  with  the  grand  woods 
bathed  in  dew,  and  the  moor-lands  steeped  in  a  hushing  quiet; 
and  with  the  night  he  must  pass  out  from  Clarencieux  a  self- 
exiled  and  self-beggared  man.  All  through  the  day  he  had 
wandered  in  monotonous,  almost  unconscious  action  among 
the  places  that  he  loved;  by  the  waves  where  they  stretched 
under  endless  crests  of  rock  and  below  beetling  walls  of  pine- 
topped  granite;  over  the  heather,  blossoming  on  leagues  on 
leagues  of  brown  wet  sand,  where  the  grouse  nested  and  the 
sea-swallow  skimmed;  through  the  dark,  interminable  aisles  of 
oaks  without  a  memory  that  could  gauge  their  hoary  age; 
through  the  rich,  wild  splendor  of  forest-growth,  all  melodious 
with  birds  and  with  the  noise  of  babbling  waters;  by  the  side 
of  lonely  lakes  belted  in  with  leafy  screens,  under  the  shelter 
of  towering  headlands,  all  clothed  with  fern  and  pine,  and 
with  the  fragrant  wealth  of  linden-flowers  and  the  clinging 
luxuriance  of  summer  creepers;  through  them  he  wandered, 
almost  insensibly,  walking  mile  on  mile  without  a  sense  of 
bodily  fatigue,  wearing  out  physical  strength  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  its  loss,  beaten,  strung,  haggard,  well-nigh  lifeless,  yet 
conscious  of  nothing  save  that  he  looked  his  last  forever  on  the 
place  of  his  birtli  and  his  heritage. 

It  was  near  midnight  wlien  he  reached  his  home  in  sheer  ex- 
haustion. Of  the  flight  of  time,  of  the  bodily  suffering  that 
racked  his  limbs,  of  the  weakness  upon  him  from  want  of  food, 
he  knew  nothing:  he  only  knew  that  before  the  next  day 
dawned  he  must  leave  Clarencieux — his  own  no  more,  but 
given  over  to  the  spoilers.     All  the  famdiar  things  must  pass 


GBANDOS.  269 

from  him,  and  be  his  no  more.  The  trees  that  had  shed  their 
shade  over  his  childish  play  would  fall  under  the  ax;  the  roof 
under  which  kings  had  sought  covert  from  the  men  of  his 
blood  would  know  him  no  longer;  strangers  would  sit  by  the 
hearth  to  which  hunted  princes  had  fled  knowmg  they  were 
safer  trusting  in  the  honor  of  a  Chandos  than  amidst  the 
Guards  of  their  lost  throne-room.  In  the  banqueting-hall, 
where  his  ancestors  had  gathered  the  chiefs  of  the  nation,  curi- 
ous throngs  would  rush  to  stare  and  barter;  the  very  marble 
that  wore  his  father's  semblance  would  be  sold  to  whoever 
would  buy;  the  very  canvas  from  which  his  mother's  eyes 
smiled  on  him  would  pass  away  to  hang  on  dealers'  walls.  In 
the  place  that  had  been  sacred  to  his  race  none  would  pause  to 
recall  his  name;  in  the  heritage  where  his  sovereignty  had  been 
absolute,  his  lightest  word  treasured,  his  idlest  wish  fulfilled, 
he  would  have  no  power  to  bid  a  dog  be  cared  for,  no  right 
to  arrest  a  hand  that  should  be  raised  to  tear  down  with  laugh 
and  gibe  the  records  and  the  symbols  of  the  honor  of  his  house. 

Through  the  years,  however  many,  thaf".  his  life  should 
stretch  to,  never  again  could  he  lay  his  head  under  the  roof 
that  had  sheltered  his  childhood's  sleep;  never  again  could  his 
eyes  look  upon  the  things  beloved  so  long;  never  again  could 
his  steps  come  here,  where  every  rood  was  hallowed  and  where 
no  race  but  his  race  had  ever  yet  reigned. 

In  that  hour  nothing  but  his  oath  to  the  man  who  had  bade 
him  live  on  and  meet  his  fate,  whatever  that  fate  should  be, 
stood  between   him  and  a  self-sought  grave. 

Death  took  the  young,  the  fair,  the  well-beloved:  Oh,  God! 
he  thought,  why  would  it  pass  him  by?  why  would  it  leave 
him  breath  oji  his  lips,  strength  in  his  limbs,  consciousness  in 
his  brain,  when  all  that  was  worth  living  for  was  dead,  when 
every  pulse  of  existence  through  his  veins  was  but  a  fresh 
pang?  Death!  he  had  known  its  worst  throes  a  thousand 
times  with  every  familiar  thing  on  which  his  eyes  had  looked 
their  List;  he  had  passed  through  its  worst  bitterness  without 
a  voice  to  comfort,  without  a  hand  to  succor  him,  with  every 
farewell  gaze  at  all  the  living  things,  at  all  the  forest  haunts, 
at  all  the  summer  loveliness,  with  which  he  had  parted  as  the 
dying  Raphael  parted  with  longing,  yearning  love  from  the 
glories  of  the  canvas  that  the  mists  of  dissolution  blinded  from 
his  sight.  Death!  he  had  died  a  million  deaths  from  the  hour 
when  he  had  known  tiiat  he  must  part  with  Clarencieux. 

It  was  long  past  midnight;  all  was  very  still.  Through  thu 
opened  casements  came  the  lulling  of  the  sea,  and  the  faint, 
delicate  murmur  of  leaves  stirring  in  a  windless  air,  moved 


860  '  CHANbOS. 

only  by  the  weight  of  their  chnging  deR^s  or  by  a  night-bird's 
wing.  All  in  tlie  vast  building  slept;  all  who  loved  him  in 
the  household  (and  they  were  many)  had  looked  their  last  upon 
his  face — the  face  that  most  of  them  had  iinown  since  the 
langh  of  its  childhood  had  been  on  it.  He  could  have  no  eyes 
upon  him  in  this  the  last  hour.  All  was  quite  still;  the  moon- 
light streamed  in,  clsar  and  white  and  cold,  through  the  un- 
closed windows;  the  whole  of  the  great  limitless  vista  of 
chamber  opening  on  chamber  stretched  on  and.  on  in  the  spec- 
tral silver  liglit;  the  hush  of  the  grave  rested  on  the  mighty 
halls  where  white-crossed  Crusaders  had  defiled,  and  houseless 
monarchs  been  sheltered,  and  revelers  feasted  in  the  king's 
name,  through  many  a  night  of  wassail,  and  his  own  life  of 
careless,  cloudless  pleasure  spent  with  so  lavish  a  hand  its 
golden  moments.  The  quivering  ashy  gleam  of  the  star-rays 
poured  down  the  porphyry  chamber,  leaving  deep  breadths  of 
gloom  between  the  aisles  of  its  columns,  touching  with  a 
mournful  light  the  drooping  standards  and  the  lost  coronet  ci 
the  last  marquis,  shed  full  across  Philip  Chandos's  statue,  and 
leaving  in  its  darkest  shadow  the  motionless  form  of  the  exiled 
and  begjiiared  man  by  whose  madness  the  honor  had  departed 
from  their  house. 

Standing  there  before  them — those  memorials  of  the  dead — 
he  felt  as  though  they  drove  him  out,  dishonored,  alien,  ac- 
cursed as  any  parricide.  Through  him  had  gone  what  had 
been  dearer  to  tliem  than  life;  through  him  had  perished  what 
tliey  had  trusted  to  him;  through  him  tlieir  name  must  be 
tarnished  by  sneer,  by  scorn — worse  yet,  by  pity;  through  him 
their  might,  their  fame,  their  stainless  heritage,  were  dragged 
;n  the  dust  and  parted  amidst  thieves.  The  crime  of  Orestes 
seemed  scarce  more  of  parricide  than  his  crime. 

Had  not  his  oath  held  him,  had  not  his  word,  pledged  to  one 
who  now  lay  in  his  fresh  grave,  bound  his  arm  powerless,  in 
that  hour  he  would  have  fallen,  killed  by  his  own  hand,  be- 
neath his  father's  statue,  where  the  moon  touched  with  its 
brightest  luster  the  proud  brow  of  the  marble  that  stood  there 
as  though  to  bear  witness  against  the  wreck  and  shame  of  his 
ruined  race,  the  desolation  of  his  forsaken  hearth. 

The  stillness  of  the  after-midnight  was  unbroken;  once  the 
distant  belling  of  a  deer  echoed  over  the  park  without;  other 
sound  there  was  none.  He  seemed  alone  with  tlie  dead  he 
had  dishonored — with  the  great  dead  whose  memories  he  had 
shamed  and  whose  treasures  he  liad  sold  into  bondage. 

He  looked  at  those  lifeless  symbols  as  though  tbey  w«?e  his' 


CHANDOS.  261 

judges  and  accusers;  and  a  hoarse  shuddering  cry  broke  from 
hiai  and  moaned  down  Ihe  silence  of  the  porphyry  hall. 

"Oh,  God! — I  saved  our  honor!" 

He  felt  as  though  he  pleaded  before  their  judgment-seat— 
as  though  he  calletl  on  them  to  bear  with  him  in  his  agony,  to 
be  merciful  to  him  in  his  misery.  He  had  not  bartered  all 
their  birthright;  he  had  not  given  up  his  honor  into  slavery! 

The  hushed,  grave-like  calm  that  followed  on  the  echo  of 
his  words  was  like  the  calm  of  a  lone  cathedral;  it  cast  back 
upon  his  heart  in  terrible  isolation  the  sense  of  how  utterly  he, 
who  had  loved  men  so  well  and  been  the  caressed  of  so  many 
voices,  stood  in  his  poverty  and  his  exile  alone. 

Slowly,  very  slowly,  he  looked  once  more  at  all  that  hemusi; 
leave  forever,  then  turned  to  pass  out  from  the  porphyry 
chamber.  But  the  tension  of  his  strength  gave  way;  weak- 
ened by  little  food,  and  worn  out  by  exhaustion,  his  limbs 
shook,  his  frame  reeled;  he,  swayed  aside  like  a  tree  under  the 
blows  of  an  ax,  and  fell  prone  across  the  threshold — the  moon- 
light bathing  him  where  he  lay. 

For  hours  he  was  stretched  senseless  there,  the  dog — the 
one  friend  faithful— couched  down  by  him  in  a  sleepless  guard. 
The  night  passed  liugeringly;  the  flicker  of  the  gentle  leaves, 
or  the  soft  rush  of  an  owl's  wing,  the  only  noise  that  stirred 
in  it  without.  Now  and  then  there  was  the  sweeping  beat  of 
a  flight  of  deer  trooping  across  the  sward  that  echoed  from 
afar;  onoe  a  nightingale  sung  her  love-song  with  a  music  of 
passionate  pain.  There  was  no  noise  of  life  in  the  great  forests 
without;  there  was  none  here  iu  the  moonlit  banqueting-hall. 

The  wind  freshened  as  the  day  drew  near,  blowing  through 
the  vastness  of  the  forsaken  chambers  down  the  aisles  of  the 
porphyry  columns;  its  cooler  breath  breathed  on  him  and  re- 
vived him;  bestirred  with  a  shuddering  sigh.  His  limbs  were 
stiff  and  paralyzed;  his  blood  seemed  frozen;  the  warm  air 
around  felt  chill  as  a  tomb.  He  rose  with  difficulty,  and 
dragged  himself,  like  a  man  crippled  with  age,  across  the  ' 
threshold  that  his  steps  should  never  repass.  The  faint  light 
of  the  young  day  was  breaking,  and  shed  a  colder,  grayer  hue 
oa  all  its  splendor,  from  which  the  white  majesty  of  the  sculpt- 
ure rose,  like  a  specter  keeping  silent  witness  over  the  aban- 
doned solitude. 

Tiius,  with  his  head  bowed,  and  in  his  step  the  slow,  labori- 
ous, feeble  efl'ort  of  bodily  prostration,  he  passed  onward — 
onward  through  all  that  never  again  could  his  eyes  look  upon, 
save  in  such  remembrance  as  dreams  lend  to  sleep,  to  mock 
the  waking  of  despair — onv/ard  through  the  mighty  entrance- 


36?  CHANDOS. 

hall,  in  which  the  silence  as  of  death  reigned,  where  the  steel 
tramp  of  the  soldiers  of  the  king  had  once  re-echoed  to  its 
vaulted  roof. 

He  looked  back,  in  longing  as  agonized,  in  thirst  as  terriblej 
in  yearning  as  speechless  in  its  love  as  that  with  which  eyes 
look  backward  to  the  bier  in  whicli  all  that  made  life  worth 
its  living  to  them  lies  sightless,  senseless,  and  forever  lost. 
He  looked  back  once — in  such  a  gaze  as  men  upon  the  scaffold 
give  to  the  fairness  of  earth  and  the  brilliance  of  sunlight  that 
they  shall  never  gaze  upon  again.  Then  the  doors  clc^d  on 
him  with  a  hollow,  sullen  sound;  he  was  driven  out  to  exile, 
and  his  place  would  know  him  no  more. 


CHAPTER  Vni. 

THE  CEOWD  IN"  THE  COUE  DES  PETIS'CES. 

With  the  day  after  his  last  entertainment  the  ruin,  so  sud- 
den and  so  vast,  had  been  rumored  on  the  town. 

Convulsed  with  amaze,  aghast  with  indignation,  indignant 
in  incredulity,  the  world  at  first  refused  to  believe  it;  persuaded 
of  its  truth,  it  went  as  nearly  mad  with  excitement  as  so  lan- 
guid and  polite  a  world  could. 

Well  as  he  had  entertained  the  world,  he  had  never,  on  the 
■whole,  so  richly  banqueted  it  as  now,  when  it  could  surfeit  it- 
self upon  a  calamity  so  astounding.  It  was  grateful  to  all, 
which  no  good  news  could  ever  claim  to  be — the  story  was  so 
utterly  undreamed  of,  so  perfectly  complete  without  a  flaw  to 
make  it  less  terrible,  a  loop-hole  to  make  it  less  dark.  It  was 
a  boon  beyond  price  in  the  hot  languid  days  of  a  waning  sea- 
son; it  only  needed  a  suspicion  of  crime  to  be  as  refreshing  as 
the  sudden  sweep  of  a  tramontana  through  the  sultry  dullness 
of  a  Neapolitan  noon.  Just  a  thread  of  "  something  wicked  " 
woven  with  it  would  have  made  it  the  cause  ccUhre  of  fashion- 
able drawing-rooms.  As  it  was,  it  was  convulsingly  amazing 
enough  to  be  on  the  lips  of  every  creature  in  the  town:  and 
inimitably  coined  rumors,  turned  out  with  an  exquisite 
promptness  and  ingenuity  from  the  mint  of  slander,  soon 
supplied  that  sole  deficiency  of  the  scandalous  element  with  an 
industry  and  adroitness  beyond  all  praise.  "  In  the  misfort- 
unes of  our  friends  there  is  always  some  relish, '^  says  the 
Fronde  philosopher;  and  when  this  adversity  piques  the  pal- 
ate, amuses  the  ennui,  and  soothes  the  vanity,  the  wretchedness 
of  a  friend  and  brother  may  become  very  singularly  acceptable. 

It  burst  upon  the  town  like  the  bursting  of  a  shell.  In  its 
tirst  rumor  it  was  utterly  discredited.     "Absurd!    Had  they 


CHANDOS.  265 

not  been  at  his  ball  last  night?  Had  not  every  one  seen  him 
at  the  new  opera?  Ruined? — preposterous!  He  could  never 
be  ruined.     They  knew  better/^ 

Then,  when  the  truth  became  indisputable,  gossip-mongera 
quarreled  for  it  as  a  flock  of  street-sparrows  quarrel  for  a 
crumb  of  bread;  and  the  town  felt  virtuous  and  outraged.  To 
have  been  led  into  offering  such  clouds  of  incense,  year  after 
year,  to  a  man  who  all  the  while  was  on  the  eve  of  bankruptcy! 
— society  felt  morally  indignant  and  unjustifiably  treated. 
Nothing  so  marvelous,  nothing  so  incredible,  had  startled  his 
order  for  many  a  long  year;  in  the  clubs  and  the  drawing- 
rooms,  in  the  Rooms  and  the  Lobby,  in  the  lounge  of  the  Park 
and  the  tete-d-tete  of  the  boudoirs,  there  was  but  one  theme — 
his  disappearance  and  his  ruin.  No  loss  could  have  been  so 
irreparable  as  the  loss  of  their  leader;  no  shock  could  have 
been  so  intense  as  the  fall  of  their  idol;  no  episode  could  have 
been  so  thrilling  as  their  reception  by  him  the  very  night  be- 
fore his  story  was  known.  Gourmets  were  in  despair — there 
would  be  no  such  dinners  elsewhere;  and  club-wits  viere  ia 
paradise — there  could  be  no  dearth  of  a  topic.  Ladies  fainted 
with  grief,  and  revived  to  wonder  if  his  Limoges-ware  would 
be  sold,  and  wept  their  bright  eyes  dim,  to  clear  them  again 
with  eager  siaeculation  as  to  the  fate  of  the  Clarencieux  dia- 
monds; divided  interests  reigned  together  in  their  hearts:  it 
was  agonizing,  it  was  terrible;  no  one  would  ever  give  them 
such  fetes,  but  it  was  possible — all  clouds  have  their  silver  lining 
— tliat  the  Chand OS  jewels  perhaps  might  come  into  the  market! 

The  Countess  de  la  Vivarol  set  her  delicate  teeth  as  she 
heard  of  it,  and  felt  her  cheek  grow  white,  rusee,  dazzling 
young  diplomatist  as  she  was. 

"  I  hate  him;  I  have  my  vengeance.  I  ought  to  rejoice/' 
she  thought;  "  and  yet — "  And  yet  in  solitude  her  tears  fell. 
"  11  est  si  beau!"  she  sighed  to  herself. 

"  He  is  ruined?  Well,  I  have  helped  to  do  it/'  said  Flora 
de  I'Orme,  with  gay  self-accusation. 

"What  a  pity!'"'  lamented  Claire  Eahel.  "The  art  of 
opera-suppers  will  perish  with  him." 

'*  There  is  an  overruling  Providence,"  sighed  the  worldly 
holies;  "  his  books  are  not  fit  to  be  read.  Genius? — ^yes,  no 
doubt;  but  what  is  genius  without  principle?" 

"  Died  game,"  said  a  Guardsman.  "  By  George,  one  saw 
nothing  last  night." 

"Always  eccentric,"  hinted  a  club-lounger.  "A  little 
mad,  /think;  and,  on  my  word,  it's  the  most  charitable  thing 
to  suppose." 


1864  CHAND03. 

*'i3eceived  us  shamefully;  acted  most  dishonorably, "  wept 
Lady  Chesterton,  to  her  allies.  *'  My  sister's  peace  is  ruined 
forever;  indeed,  I  fear  for  her  very  life.  But  we  may  h\. 
thaukful  perhaps  for  even  this  terrible  blow:  it  may  have  saved 
more.  What  hapjjiuess  could  she  have  looked  for  with  a  gam- 
bler, a  libertine,  a  free-thinker,  however  brilliant  his  career:'* 

Two  or  three  women  —  notably  one  beautiful  Roman 
princess,  with  the  splendor  of  Rome  in  her  eyes — suffered  pas- 
sionately in  their  solitude,  passively  though  they  had  listened 
to  the  world  on  the  subject,  and  thought,  wearily  pushing  off 
their  weighty  hair  from  their  brows,  ''  /would  have  gone  with 
him  to  his  beggary. ' ' 

For  the  rest,  the  world  talked  itself  out  of  breath  over  its 
lost  leader's  fall,  and  picked  the  story  of  his  calamity  as  a 
carrion  jjicks  tlie  bones  of  the  dead  camel.  It  flavored  their 
white  soups,  was  the  choicest  olives  to  their  wines,  sjjared 
them  silent  moments,  let  the  dull  seem  witty  if  he  brought  a 
piquant  addition  to  it,  and  gave  a  lulliug  morphine  to  the 
pangs  of  jealous  vanity.  The  world  was  perfectly  certain,  of 
course,  that  the  assertion  of  ignorance  was  merely  a  blind,  and 
that  they  had  been  wittingly  duped  many  years.  A  man  run 
through  a  fine  fortune  without  knowing  it? — ridiculous!  And 
the  world  began  also,  as  Trevenna  prophesied,  to  find  out 
that  "  Lucrece  "  was  very  immoral. 

Thus  the  babble  busied  itself  over  the  wreck  of  a  life,  deny- 
ing it  even  that  sanctity  of  solitude  which  even  barbarians 
have  conceded  to  calamity,  and  exposing  it  far  and  wide  in 
those  pillories  where  no  adversity  can  veil,  no  misery  can  fal- 
low, no  dignity  beneath  misfortune  can  avail  to  shield  those 
once  given  over  to  the  mercy  of  insatiate  tongues. 

They  were  shocked,  grieved,  horrified,  most  compassionately 
sym2:)athetic,  of  course;  but  they  were  quite  of  opinion  that 
the  idol  they  had  followed  had  been  utterly  worthless,  and 
began  to  discuss  with  unani>nous  vivacity  the  chances  of  who 
would  be  most  likely  to  secure  the  prize  of  that  inimitable 
genius  Dubosc.  It  was  perhaps  regarded  as  almost  tlie  cruel- 
est  stroke  of  the  whole  fearful  affair  when  the  fact  oozed  out 
that  the  celebrated  cJief  alleged  his  spirit  to  be  broken,  and 
announced  his  intention  of  retiring  for  the  rest  of  his  days  to 
a  villa  at  Auteuil,  there  to  devote  his  mind  primarily  in  un- 
interrupted study  to  the  effects  that  might  be  produced  by 
certain  elements  unrevealed  on  the  red  mullet — a  problem 
which  had  long  pursued  him — and  to  indite  a  work  which 
should  annihilate  13rillat-Savarin  and  becom.3  the  eterna/ 
Libro  d'Oro  of  gastronomists. 


CHANDOS.  2QS 

The  world,  altogether,  was  harshly  treated.  There  was  no 
scandal  or  crime  in  the  stor}'  of  ruin — which  omission  ren- 
dered it  curry  without  its  cayeuue;  aud  the  great  coveted  mas- 
ter— Dubosc — was  lost  to  it.  It  could  have  lived  without  its 
late  idol  well  enough,  but  it  could  not  be  reconciled  to  living 
without  his  cook.  So  it  said  one  De  Profundis  over  the  virt- 
ually dead  man,  and  turned  to  his  sales,  much  as  it  would 
have  turned  from  his  tomb  to  his  catalogues.  No  one  asked 
where  he  had  gone;  what  did  it  matter?  Take  what  route  he 
would,  he  would  be  sure  to  go  to  Avernus. 

Men  there  were,  it  is  true,  who  took  it  strongly  to  heart  in 
their  own  silent  Quietest  fashion,  who  smoked  huge  cigars 
over  it  in  gloomy  silence,  who  could  not  forget,  try  as  they 
would,  the  voice  that  had  always  spoken  them  a  gay  welcome, 
tlie  hand  that  had  been  always  stretched  out  to  aid  them,  the 
ej^es  that  hud  never  looked  harshly  on  any  living  thing. 
There  were  men,  many  men  of  his  own  order,  who  loved  him, 
who  could  not  think  of  hiui  without  feeling  like  fools,  as  they 
phrased  it;  and  there  were  others  not  of  his  set,  young  men 
of  talent  and  ambition,  who  had  found  an  Augustus  in  this 
sparkling  Catullus,  who  had  been  given  fashion  in  their  art 
by  a  word  from  him,  and  who  had  known  no  patron  so  sure, 
so  generous,  so  omnipotent.  These  lamented  him  sorely, 
bewailed  him  bitterly  in  their  souls;  but  their  voices  could  not 
be  heard  amidst  tiie  veering  wind  of  the  condemning  breath 
of  many  thousand  lips;  and  the  world  in  general  fluttered  the 
catalogue-leaves  with  raised  eyebrows,  and  murmured  its  strict- 
ures on  the  morality  of  "  Lucrece. "  He  was  ruined,  and  they 
had  been  deceived;  it  was  frightfully  shocking,  of  course;  but 
meanwhile  the  virtuosi  felt  curious  about  the  Querela  terra- 
cottas and  the  Fragonard  medallions;  turf-men  could  not 
but  congratulate  each  other  that  the  famous  Glarencieux  strains 
would  become  public  property;  dilettanti  thought  of  the  superb 
Titians  and  exquisite  Petits  Maitres  they  had  envied  so  long; 
Pall  Mall  loungers  rumored  on  his  cabinets  of  cigars,  and  epi- 
cures longed  to  read  the  catalogue  of  his  Comet,  his  Regency, 
and  his  Imperial  growth  wines;  v/hilst  ladies  comforted  them- 
selves for  their  darling's  loss  by  projects  for  securing  his 
Delia  Robbia  ware,  his  Evangeliarium  in  conical  letters  en- 
riched with  crystals  e«  caboclwn,  his  Cellini  vases,  or  his  Pom* 
padour  cabinets,  lie  had  amused  them,  no  doubt,  far  more 
brilliantly  than  any  other  ever  would  do;  but,  since  he  was 
gone,  it  was  as  well  to  console  themselves  with  his  collections. 
(Jhandos  before  had  entertained  but  his  order;  now  he  fur* 
uished  entertainment  for  all  the  world. 


!&66  CHANDOS. 

When  the  palace-gates  were  opened  in  the  raw  gra}'  of  the 
morning,  and  the  Poissardes  rushed  in,  eager,  envious,  insa- 
tiate, devouring,  filling  the  Cour  des  Princes,  what  matter  to 
them  that  the  privacy  of  Versailles  had  never  before  beea 
broken  save  by  laughter  and  music  and  the  soft  fall  of 
women's  ste^js  and  the  glitter  of  a  throng  of  nobles? — what 
matter  that  Calamity  held  the  throne-room,  that  a  mighty 
adversity  had  set  its  seal  of  sanctity  upon  the  threshold?  Like 
the  Poissardes  in  the  Cour  des  Princes,  the  crowds  rushed  to  en- 
joy the  ruin  of  the  leader  of  fashion,  and  gave  not  one  thought 
to  the  fate  of  the  discrowned.  His  palaces  were  theirs  to 
wreck  and  to  burn  as  they  would ;  they  pillaged  with  both  hands. 

Moreover,  as  Philippe  Egalite,  if  history  bewray  him  not 
(which,  sooth  to  say,  it  often  does),  took  a  latent  pleasure  in 
that  rifling  of  his  house,  in  that  destruction  of  his  order,  and 
went  up  to  see  the  crowd  throngiug  through  the  dismantled 
palace-chambers  with  a  smile  on  his  lips,  aud  his  little  cane 
swinging  lightly  between  his  fingers,  to  see  the  annihilation  of 
the  Eldest-born,  to  see  the  rooting  up  and  trampling  down  of 
the  White  Lilies,  even,  like  Monseigneur  d 'Orleans,  some 
there  were  of  his  own  relatives,  of  his  own  rank,  who  came  up 
to  watch  the  spoliation,  and  to  view  the  wreckers  among  the 
household  treasures  of  the  fallen  man,  with  a  certain  sense  of 
gratification,  with  a  certain  self-congratulatory  remembrance 
that  he  had  most  inconveniently  outshone  them. 

The  comet  was  quenched  in  the  blackness  of  darkness. 
Well,  on  the  whole,  the  stars  felt  they  showed  better. 

And  the  mondes  sympathized  tenderly  with  the  gross  wrong 
done  the  Lily  Queen,  and  said  they  were  grieved  that  even  the 
honor  of  his  great  father's  name  could  not  keep  Chandos  from 
Buch  extravagance  and  such  dissipations  as  had  disgraced  him, 
and  wondered  whether  those  famous  Titians  of  his  really  were 
genuine — they  had  their  doubts  —  and  murmured  to  each 
other,  in  the  fragrant  air  of  their  boudoirs,  that  there  was  a 
terrible  story  —  very  terrible — of  one  of  his  Eastern  girls, 
hushed  up  and  lying  at  the  root  of  a  great  deal  of  this  sudden 
disappearance.  "Then  the  papers,  too,  took  up  the  theme,  and 
embellished  it  in  leaders  and  notes  of  the  week;  and  the 
"  llypercritic  "  recanted,  and  found  the  tone  of  "  Lucrece  " 
most  unhealthy. 

"  Dieu!  how  droll  an  end  to  his  royalty!  It  is  horrible, 
and  yet  it's  amusing,"  said  Flora  de  I'Orme,  casting  herself 
down,  on  the  day  of  the  first  view,  on  one  of  the  couches  in 
his  own  room,  while  strangers  stared  up  at  the  painted  ceiling, 
tossed  over  hits  portfolios,  appraised  the  bric-a-brac,  wondered 


CHANDOS.  267 

at  the  Daphne,  and  talked  that  the  French  sovereign  had 
bought  all  the  Old  Masters.  What  Demi-Monde  said  openly, 
a  higher  and  more  delicate  Monde  thought  secretly— a  point 
of  coincidence  common  betwixt  the  two. 

The  world  found  it  amusing,  this  discrowning  and  disrobing 
of  its  idol.  His  treasures  were  scattered  far  and  wide;  liis 
favorite  gems  were  numbered  in  lots;  his  pictures  were  borne 
from  barren  walls  to  hang  under  other  roofs  and  in  other 
lands;  the  Daphne  was  torn  from  her  rose-hued  shrine  to  pass 
to  a  Russian  palace;  the  Danai'd  was  bought  by  an  American 
fur-dealer  to  go  to  his  mansion  in  the  Fifth  Avenue;  the  plate 
"was  bought  by  the  great  jewelers  to  be  remelted;  the  Circas- 
sian girls  were  hired  by  a  French  due;  the  Park  Lane  house 
was  let  to  strangers— new  millionaires  of  Melbourne-made 
fortunes — who  had  the  painted  ceiling  gilded  over,  the  winter- 
garden  changed  into  a  covered  glass  building  for  skittles,  and 
the  studio  turned  into  a  lumber-closet. 

The  world  hai  followed  him,  worshiped  him,  caressed, 
quoted,  courted,  adored  him;  but  when  his  catalogues  closed, 
his  interest  for  it  had  passed  away.  His  closest  friends  were 
not  altogether  sorry  to  have  his  Titians  in  their  galleries,  his 
clarets  in  their  cellars,  the  Clarencieus  breed  in  their  racing- 
establishments,  and  to  feel  that  one  who  had  eclipsed  them  had 
passed  out  of  sight.  His  ruin  was  a  nine  days'  wonder;  then 
a  peeress  ran  away  with  a  famous  Tenor,  and  usurped  the 
attention  of  society.  Women  taught  themselves  a  pretty  blush 
when  that  shocking  word  "  Lucrece  "  was  spoken  of;  and 
men  laid  bets  at  evens  that  he  had  killed  himself. 

The  world  indeed  felt  that  such  an  end  for  the  tragedy  was 
due  to  it,  specially  as  it  had  been  acutely  disappointed  in  the 
fate  of  Clarencieux. 


The  summer  days  found  Trevenna  at  the  place  that  was  lost 
forever  to  the  great  race  which  had  reigned  there  since  the 
thrones  of  Rufus  and  Beauclerc.  Ostensibly  he  was  there  in 
a  self-imposed  devotion  to  his  ruined  friend's  interests,  keeping 
watch  and  ward  over  the  spoilers.  Indeed,  the  world 
altogether  gave  Trevenna  credit  for  behaving  very  admirably 
in  the  matter — for  showiiig  an  excellent  spirit  throughout. 
He  seemed  really  grieved  in  his  own  manner;  he  confessed 
himself  "  cut  up,'*  lamented  that  Chandos  never  would  take 
his  warnings,  and  carried  himself  with  so  candid  a  contrition, 
so  genuine  a  friendship,  that  society — who  could  learn  more  to 
gratify  its   curiosity   through  him   than  through  any  one—- 


3G8  CHANDOS. 

thought  very  well  of  him.  Society  naturally  could  not  doubt 
his  regret  for  a  man  with  whom  he  had  dined  almost  every  day 
of  his  life,  aud  began  to  discover  that  he  was  a  very  sensible 
aud  very  entertaining  person:  he  spoke  with  so  much  good 
feeliug,  and  yet  with  so  much  just  discrimination,  of  his 
friend's  self-destruction.  He  would  never  have  dissipated  so 
royal  a  j^roperty. 

It  was  thought,  too,  very  delicate  in  him  that,  after  the  first 
shock  of  the  town,  he  withdrew  himself  as  much  as  possible  to 
Clarencieux,  to  avoid  hearing  the  misfortune  discussed,  and  to 
guard,  as  far  as  he  could,  the  conduct  of  the  sales  from  dis- 
honesty. Of  course  he  bad  no  power,  as  he  said;  still,  if  there 
were  any  residue,  he  should  too  gladly  save  it  for  his  lost 
friend,  though  no  one  knew  whither  that  friend  had  gone; 
and,  at  all  events,  it  was  as  well  to  keej^  some  note  of  the  cred- 
itors' proceedings.  In  truth,  in  all  his  life  Trevenna  had 
never  enjoyed  himself  so  thorougidy. 

To  lounge  through  the  porphyry  chamber,  with  a  bailiff 
eating  his  luncheon  under  the  coronet  of  the  last  marquis,  to 
saunter  through  the  portrait-gallery  and  hear  dealers  appraise 
the  Lelys  and  Lawrences,  the  Vandykes  and  the  Jamesones, 
to  ride  through  the  forests  and  know  they  would  soon  be  felled 
as  bare  as  a  plateau,  to  feel  his  horse's  hoofs  sink  into  the  rose 
and  lilac  heather-blooms  and  think  how  building-lots  would 
soon  crush  all  that  flower-fragrance  out  of  sight,  to  look  across 
from  the  deer-park  over  the  sea  and  muse  how  the  mighty 
herds  would  be  driven  out  and  dispersed,  while  scaffoldings  of 
bathing-hotels  would  rise  to  front  the  waters  where  now  no 
step  stirred  the  ospreys  and  no  sound  scared  the  silver-gulls — 
this  was  Trevenna's  paradise — the  paradise  he  had  set  himself 
to  gain  ever  since  the  oath  he  had  sworn  in  his  childish  venge- 
ance, standing  in  the  streets  of  Westminster.  Hannibal-like, 
he  had  sworn  in  his  boyhood  to  sack  the  citadel  of  his  foes; 
more  fortunate  than  Hannibal,  he  had  seen  his  Eome  fall. 

All  the  cruellest  traces  of  ruin  were  those  which  brought 
him  most  closely  home  the  unction  of  his  success:  the  Greuze 
room,  with  the  writing-table  strewn  just  as  the  pen  had  last 
been  thrown  down;  the  studio,  with  the  unfinished  picture  on 
the  easel,  the  unused  colors  dried  upon  the  palette,  the  brushes 
scattered  as  they  had  been  laid  aside  by  a  careless  hand,  the 
beautiful  heads  of  women  and  the  delicate  grace  of  landscapes 
that  never  now  would  be  completed  by  the  fancy  which  had 
created  them;  the  statues  with  their  snow-white  limbs 
smutched  by  the  dirty  fingers  of  appraisers;  the  treasures 
which  had  been  the  gift  of  monarchs  noted  down  at  their  net 


CHANDOS.  269 

value;  the  volumes  that  were  the  collections  of  centuries  num- 
bered and  ticketed  in  lots;  th«  rose-terraces,  with  all  their 
luxuriance  of  blossom,  their  perfect  sculpture,  their  summer 
sunlight,  filled  with  the  gathering  of  traders,  Jews,  aud 
brokers — these  were  the  things  that  brought  to  him  the  full 
realization  of  his  uttermost  desires. 

"  We  should  put  the  escutcheon  up,  and  paint  '  Ichabod  ' 
under  it:  the  glory  has  gone  from  your  house.,  my  superb  aris- 
tocrats!'^ thought  he,  as  he  lounged  down  the  fa9ade  of  the 
building;  and,  but  that  it  would  have  looked  a  strange  lament 
for  his  ruined  friend,  he  could  have  enjoyed  doing  that  bit  of 
buffoonery  himself.  Like  many  men  of  strong  will  and  in- 
domitable endurance  —  like  Cromwell,  and  Napoleon,  and 
Frederick — he  had  a  dash  of  the  broad  jester  in  him,  a  love  of 
comic,  farcical  bathos;  it  enters  largely  into  many  of  the  most 
powerful  characters.  For  sheer  school-boy,  devil-may-care 
love  and  zest  in  the  devastation,  he  could  have  taken  a  brush 
himself  and  painted  "Sic  transit^'  on  the  white  pedestal  of 
the  minister's  statue;  for  he  was  very  human  in  his  Mephisto- 
phelism,  and  jovial,  almost,  in  the  old  rich  Hellenic  sense  in 
his  animal  spirits.  Besides,  he  had  worn  a  curb  so  long;  it 
was  a  delicious  sensation  to  be  utterly  free  and  utterly  victorious. 

A  good  many  of  those  into  whose  hands  Clarencieux  had 
fallen  had  made  their  camj)  there  for  a  day  or  so,  whilst  the 
valuation  was  being  made.  It  was  given  over  to  many  mas- 
ters; it  had  none  in  esjDCcial.  Trevenna  took  his  quarters 
there  unmolested.  He  was,  of  course,  closely  allied  with  the 
lawyers,  familiar  for  years  with  the  agents;  and  he  had  a 
pleasant  way  with  him  that  made  him  welcome  even  to  those 
whom  ostensibly  he  came  to  inspect  and  control.  He  occu- 
pied the  rooms  Chandos  had  himself  always  used — that  suite 
of  the  Greuze  chambers  looking  out  on  the  deer-park;  and  as 
he  stretched  his  limbs  on  the  bed,  under  the  costly  canopy  of 
silk  and  lace  and  golden  broideries,  he  could  say  to  himself, 
what  few  ever  can  say,  "  1  have  accomplished  the  dreams  of 
my  youth.'^  He  did  not  say  so,  so  poetically;  but  he  thought, 
with  a  laugh  of  self-congratulation — 

"  My  brilliant  Chandos!  which  of  us  is  the  victor  now:'' 

And  deeper  than  that  jesting  triumph,  more  bitter,  more 
intense  in  exultation,  more  exhaustless  in  sovereign  supremacy, 
was  the  sense  in  him  of  having  struck  down  forever  tlie  aris- 
iocrat  he  had  hatcil,  and  of  having  alone,  unaided,  sheerly  by 
force  of  his  oww  masterly  intelligence  and  his  own  matchless 
wit,  pioneered  himself  into  a  road  on  which  he  would  distance 
the  patrician  he  had  so  long  and  so  futilely  envied,  aud  mount 


270  CHANDOS. 

higher  and  higher,  till  he  filled  the  void  and  ascended  the 
throne  from  which  he  had  flung  down  his  rival. 

Thought  of  remorse,  touch  of  self-condemnation,  there  were 
none  in  him;  he  had  hugged  what  he  deemed  his  own  wrong 
till  he  had  learned  to  look  on  treachery  as  a  legitimate  shield 
and  on  chicanery  as  a  legitimate  weapon.  Moreover,  he  was 
of  a  bright,  world-wise,  unerring,  unscrujDulous  strength  of 
nature,  that  never  succumbed  to  weakness  and  was  never 
tainted  by  after-doubt. 

That  this  nature  was  also  one  that  no  benefit  could  soften, 
no  gratitude  warm,  was  the  most  damning  thing  in  the  close- 
wrought  steel  of  its  formation. 

The  third  day  of  his  stay  in  the  Greuze  suite,  he  sat  at  din- 
ner with  the  land-steward  and  one  of  the  late  lawyers  of  the 
ruined  house.  He  was  popular  with  business-men  of  every 
class,  though  they  sometimes  shirked  his  pungent  knowledge 
of  them;  and,  now  that  he  v^as  a  Member,  they  in  especial  began 
to  find  out  how  racy  his  wit  was,  and  how  cordial  his  bonhomie. 

The  confusion  that  reigned  in  the  building  pleased  him;  he 
would  have  liked  to  have  seen  the  whole  stripped  and  gutted 
by  fire,  if  he  could;  he  would  have  watched  the  leaping  flames 
devour  Clarencieux  as  the  Eomans  watched  them  devour  the 
fair  palace- walls  of  the  city  of  the  Barca  brood.  The  old 
servants  who  came  to  him,  homeless,  with  tears  running  down 
their  cheeks,  thinking  little  of  their  own  fortunes,  but  begging 
him  to  tell  them  if  he  knew  aught  of  their  beloved  lord,  the 
weary,  dejected  faces  of  the  keepers  and  the  tenants  when  he 
met  them  in  the  shadowy  woods^  the  emotion  with  which 
strong  men  shook  like  women  as  they  spoke  of  the  master  they 
had  lost — all  these  tonched  him  not  a  whit.  They  angered 
him,  because  there  was  one  throne  from  which  he  could  not 
oust  Chandos — the  hearts  of  his  people;  but  they  touched 
him  not  a  second.  And  in  like  manner  the  desolation  and 
confusion  of  the  household  pleased  him;  and  he  would  rather 
have  seen  a  broker  cracking  a  bottle  of  rum  at  the  ebony 
tables  of  the  banqueting-room,  than  he  would  have  sat  there 
to  be  entertained  with  all  the  sovereigns  of  Christendom. 
Therefore  his  dinner  in  the  Greuze  cabinet  to-night,  though  a 
hasty  and  ill-assorted  one,  had  more  flavor  in  it  than  all  the 
delicate  and  unsurpassed  tete-a-tete  banquets  which  he  had 
used  to  eat  there  with  the  owner  of  Clarencieux.  He  had 
never  enjoyed  himself  more  than  as  he  leaned  back  in  the 
Louis  Quinze  arm-chair  that  Chandos  had  used  to  occupy, 
puffed  his  smoke  into  the  fair  eyes  of  the  French  painter's 
women,  and  eat  his  cutlet  off  the  gold  plate  with  the  arms  of 


CHANDOS.  271 

Clarencieux  raised  in  bass-relief  upon  it,  which  would  soon  pass 
to  a  millionaire's  ormulu  buffet  or  be  melted  down  in  the  sil- 
versmith's smelting-room. 

As  he  sat  there,  the  crash  of  wheels  driven  at  a  gallop 
ground  the  avenue-road  beneath  the  windows;  a  carriage 
swept  round  and  paused.  Silence  followed.  "Is  it  Esau 
come  back  to  looii  at  his  lost  laud?"  thought  Trevenna.  Au- 
dacious, bold  as  a  lion,  and  masculine  in  all  his  courage  and 
his  powers  as  he  was,  he  could  never  think  but  with  a  qualm 
of  that  night  in  which  the  hand  of  the  man  he  had  pursued 
and  goaded  had  been  upon  his  throat,  forcing  him  backward 
out  of  his  presence.  It  was  bitter  to  his  manhood  that  sud- 
den surprise  should  have  so  thrown  him  off  his  guard,  that  he 
had  endured  the  indignity  of  being  thrust  away  lilie  a  cur; 
and  even  his  fearless  temper  felt  that  it  might  be  possible  to 
gibe  and  sting  luid  taunt  a  man  made  mad  with  misery  one 
step  too  far.  And  yet  the  unsatisfied  hatred  in  him,  the  love 
and  zest  in  his- conquest,  made  him  think,  despite  that — 

"  I  wish  he  might  come  back — just  come  back  to  see  us  here. " 

As  the  thought  crossed  him,  the  door  of  the  Greuze  cabinet 
was  flung  open,  the  Due  d'Orvale  strode  in,  his  frank  face 
flushed,  his  chestnut  hair — just  dashed  with  a  white  thread 
here  and  there — tossed  back  disordered,  his  hazel  eyes  aflame. 

"  Where  is  Chaudos?" 

His  mellow  voice  rang  out  almost  in  the  fierceness  of  a  chal- 
lenge. He  entered  without  any  of  the  ceremony  customoraily 
shown  his  rank,  and  without  any  formalities  of  greeting:  "  Le 
foil  d'Or'vdle,"  as  his  world  called  him,  disdained  both  cere- 
monies and  formalities. 

Trevenna  rose  and  received  him  with  that  informal  indiffer- 
ence with  which  (it  was  his  best  and  highest  point)  he  received 
a  prince,  as  unembarrassedly  as  he  would  have  done  a  sweep. 
Indeed,  there  was  something  grand  and  true  in  his  intense 
democratic  scorn  for  titular  differences,  if  he  had  not  stifled 
his  democracy  when  it  was  expedient,  as  he  courted  his  hated 
aristocrats  when  it  was  lucrative. 

"  Where  is  Chandosr"  repeated  D'Orvale,  imperiously. 

"Don't  know.  Monsieur  le  Due,"  said  Trevenna;  "per- 
haps in  Hades." 

"You  don't  know?" 

The  eyes  of  Monseigneur  Philippe  began  to  sparkle  danger- 
ously. Sweet-tempered  to  a  fault,  and  wildly  reckless  of  him- 
self, he  loved  hotly,  and  hated  hotly  too. 

"  Xobody  knows.  Monsieur  le  Due,"  returned  Trevenna^ 
with  a  latent  irrepressible  delight  at  standing  there  on  the 


272  CHANDOS. 

hearth  at  Clarencieux  and  saying  this  of  its  dispossessed  and 
exiled  lord.      "  I  sujopose  you  will  have  heard — " 

Philippe  d^Orvule  stopped  him  with  a  jDassionate  Parisian 
oath,  and  struck  his  right  hand  on  the  console  by  which  he 
stood,  till  the  room  rang  with  the  echo. 

"Heard?  Yes,  I  have  heard.  The  news  reached  me  in 
Hussia.  I  have  traveled  night  and  day  since,  without  stopping 
— though  till  I  reached  England  I  believed  the  tale  the  blackest 
falsehood  ever  spawned.     You  do  not  hnoiv  where  he  is  goner" 

"  Xobo:ly  does,  I  have  said,  Monsieur  le  Due,"  rejoined 
Trevenna,  a  little  impatientlj-.  He  held  the  French  prince  in 
profound  derision,  as  a  man  who,  having  the  chance  to  rule 
half  the  Continent  had  he  chosen,  spent  all  his  substance  on 
cafe-singers  and  posture-dancers.  ""  He  is  gone,  I  am  sorry  to 
say;  and  the  world  expects  him  to  send  it  a  sensational  suicide. " 

The  brown  03^68  of  Due  Philippe,  so  kindly  and  so  full  of 
gayety  and  mirth  at  other  times,  grew  full  of  ominous  wrath; 
his  colossal  strength,  that  stood  unimpaired  all  the  wild  ex- 
cesses of  his  life,  towered  in  the  light  against  the  violet  hang- 
ings of  the  cabinet;  he  faced  Trevenna  with  a  superb  disdain, 
mingled  with  the  impatient  grief  that  his  face,  mobile  as  a 
woman's  and  transparent  as  a  child 's,  betrayed  without  disguise. 

"  What!  what!    Did  every  one  forsake  him  in  a  single  day?" 

Trevenna  shruo^aed  his  shoulders. 
Men  are  rats,  monseigneur — scurry  toward  a  full  granary, 
and  scamper  away  from  a  rotting  house.  As  for  the  forsak- 
ing, I  don't  know  about  that.  He  gave  a  ball  one  night,  and 
let  the  town  hear  next  day  he  was  all  but  bankrupt;  he  made 
a  present  of  everything  to  his  creditors,  and  disappeared  an- 
other night,  God  knows  wiiere.  Now  a  man  who  does  that 
don't  please  society." 

If  Philippe  d'Orvale  had  doubted  the  fate  that  had  befallen 
his  friend,  he  could  have  doubted  no  longer  when  those  W'Ords 
were  spoken,  under  the  roof  of  Clarencieux,  by  the  man 
Chandos  had  protected,  befriended,  and  benefited. 

He  shook  with  rage  as  he  heard;  the  reckless  and  dissolute 
prince-Bohemian  might  have  many  vices,  but  he  had  not  the 
most  dastardly  vice  on  earth;  he  had  no  desertion  for  the  fallen. 

"  You  were  his  debtor,  sir;  of  course  you  are  but  a  time- 
server!''  he  said,  wilh  the  haughty  contempt  of  the  Veille 
Cour  on  his  fine  lips,  the  noblesse  spirit  waking  in  him, 
utterly  as  it  was  accused  of  slumbering  whilst  he  drank  with 
buiTo-singcrs,  laughed  with  policliinelle-showmen,  danced  the 
mad  Rigolboche  and  Cancan  at  the  Chateau  Eouge,  and 
learned  their  arfjot  de  la  Halle  oyster-feasting  with  blooming 


CHANDOS.  373 

Poissardes,  ia  all  his  headloug  Paris  orgies.     "  It  is  true, 
then,  all  this  accursed  history  that  I  hear  iu  every  mouth?" 

"  Only  too  true,"  said  Treveuiui,  more  gravely.  He  would 
have  rather  had  any  eyes  on  him  than  those  of  this  devil-may- 
care  and  dauntless  noble,  this  eccentric  and  hare-brained 
original,  this  hon  enfant  of  the  Coulisses  and  the  Chaumiere, 
whom  Europe  had  pronounced  insane  for  inviting  Barbary 
apes  to  brealifast;  for  he  knew  how  Philippe  d^Orvale  loved 
his  friend.  "  Only  too  true.  Monsieur  le  Due.  Chandos  has 
lost  everything,  and  gone  no  one  knows  whither;  out  of  Eng- 
land, uo  doubt.  It  was  very  suddenly  that  the  crash  came  at 
last — though,  of  course,  the  extravagance  of  years  had  long 
led  up  to  it." 

Philippe  d'Orvale  swung  from  him,  and  turned  to  the  other 
men  with  the  grand  disdain  with  which  he  would  have  turned 
on  to  the  Marsellaise  swarming  on  the  Terrasse  des  Feuillans, 
had  he  lived  in  the  days  of  the  Lilies. 

"  You  were  all  the  creatures  of  his  bounty.  Can  you  serve 
him  no  better  way  than  by  sitting  drinking  his  wines  in  his 
chambers?  Could  he  not  be  gone  one  hour  before  you  carrion- 
crows  came  to  pick  your  feast?  Answer  me  in  a  word.  AVhat 
has  been  done  to  save  him?" 

"To  save  him!"  echoed  Trevenna,  whose  imperturbable 
nonchalance  and  good  humor  alone  left  him  able  to  answer 
the  sudden  attack  of  ths  fiery  Southern  noble,  which  had 
paralyzed  his  companions.  "  Everything,  Monsieur  le  Due, 
that  tact  and  good  sense  could  suggest.  But  you  can  not  dam 
up  an  avalanche  once  on  its  downward  road;  no  mortal  skill 
could  arrest  his  ruin.     It  was  far  too  vast,  too  complete." 

Philippe  d^Orvale  seemed  as  though  he  heard  nothing;  he 
stood  there  in  his  herculean  stature,  with  his  fiery  glance  flash- 
ing on  the  men  before  him,  his  lips  drawn  into  a  close  tight 
line  under  the  chestnut  shower  of  his  beard.  So  only  had  they 
set  once  before,  when  he  had  seen  a  young  girl  struck  and 
kicked  by  her  owners  on  a  wiuter^s  night  outside  the  (juiugette, 
where  he  had  been  as  a  Pierrot  to  a  barriere  ball  of  ouvriers 
and  grisettes;  and  the  man  who  had  beaten  her  till  she  moaned 
where  she  lay  like  a  shot  fawn  had  been  felled  down  iu  the 
snow  by  a  single  crashing  stroke  from  the  arm  in  whose  veins 
ran  the  blood  of  French  nobles  who  had  charged  with  Godefroi 
de  Bouillon,  and  died  with  Bayard,  and  fought  at  Ivry  under 
the  White  Plume. 

"  What  is  left  him?"  he  asked,  curtly,     llis  breath  cam© 
short  and  sharply  drawn. 
"  i^othing,  monseigueur." 


274  CHANDOS. 

Trevenna  felt  his  hate  rising  against  this  haughty  roistererj 
this  sobered  reveler,  who  came  to  challenge  the  hopelessness 
and  the  completeness  of  the  devastation  he  had  wrought.  He 
could  not  resist  the  malicious  pleasure  of  standing  there  face 
to  face  with  the  aristocrat-ally,  the  titled  boon-companion,  of 
the  ruined  man,  and  dinning  in  his  ear  the  total  beggary  that 
had  fallen  on  his  favorite  and  his  friend. 

"  Nothing!  Not  a  shilling!"  he  repeated,  with  the  same  relish 
with  which  a  hound  turns  his  tongue  over  his  lips  after  a  savory, 
thirsty  plunge  of  his  fangs  into  the  blood  he  is  allowed  to  taste. 

"  '  Nothing!'    Is  this  place  gone?" 

"  It  is  going  by  auction.  Monsieur  le  Due.'' 

The  curt,  caustic  complacency  of  the  answer  was  not  to  bo 
restrained  for  all  that  prudence  could  suggest. 

"  Good  God!  what  he  has  suffered!" 

The  words  broke  unconsciously  from  D'Orvale's  lips;  he 
knew  lioio  he  had  suffered.  In  the  moment  he  almost  suffered 
as  much.  Due  Philippe  was  reckless,  wayward,  wasteful  of 
the  goods  of  the  earth  and  the  gifts  of  his  brain,  was  eccentric 
to  the  verge  of  insanity,  and  fooled  away  his  mature  years  in 
the  follies  of  a  Eochester,  in  the  orgies  of  a  Sheridan;  but  he 
had  a  generosity  as  wide  and  a  heart  as  warm  as  the  stretch 
of  his  Southern  lands,  as  the  light  of  his  Southern  suns.  For 
a  moment  the  grief  on  him  had  the  mastery;  then,  shaking 
his  hair  as  a  lion  shakes  its  tawny  mane,  he  dashed  his  hand 
down  again  on  the  marble  breadth  of  the  console. 

"  Sold?     By  the  heaven  above  us,  never!" 

Trevenna  bowed  with  a  tinge  of  ironic  insolence  of  which  he 
was  scarcely  aware  himself. 

"  It  would  be  happy  if  monseigneur  could  make  his  words 
good;  but,  unfortunately,  creditors  are  stubborn  things. 
Clarencieux  is  no  longer  our  poor  friend's,  but  belongs  to  his 
claimants.  It  will  be  parceled  out  by  the  auctioneer's  hammer. " 

''Never!" 

Trevenna  bowed  again. 

"  With  every  respect,  Monsieur  le  Due,  for  your  very  strong 
negative,  I  fear  it  is  quite  impossible  that  it  can  take  effect. 
Clarencieux  is  doomed!" 

D'Orvale  flashed  his  glance  over  him  with  that  mute  scorn 
which  his  grandfather  had  given  to  Sanson  when  he  sauntered 
up  the  steps  of  the  guillotine  as  calmly  as  he  had  gone  through 
a  minuet  with  Marie  Antoinette  or  Lamballe. 

"  You  triumph  in  your  patron's  adversity,  sir!  That  is  but 
inevitable;  every  jackal  is  content  when  the  lion  falls!  By  the 
God  above  us,  I  tell  you  Clare'icjeiix  shall  not  be  bartered!"- 


CHANDOS.  275 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  With  every  deference.  Monsieur  le  Due,  your  language, 
though  you  arc  a  prince,  is  not  polite.  With  regard  to 
Clarencieux  — " 

"It  shall  be  mine." 

The  words  were  said  as  Philippe  d^Orvale  could  say  such 
when  he  chose,  with  a  dignity  that  none  could  have  surpassed, 
with  a  sovereignty  that  sat  finely  on  him  in  its  negligent  ease, 
with  a  force  of  wdl  which  now  and  then  flashed  out  of  his  mad 
caprices  and  his  fantastic  vagaries,  and  showed  what  this  man 
might  have  been  had  he  so  willed  to  lead  the  world  instead  of 
to  be  the  hero  of  a  night's  wild  masking,  the  king  of  a  score 
of  wine-cup  rioters. 

"  Yours?    Impossible!'^ 

Trevenna  was  startled  almost  into  self-betrayal  of  the  thirst 
that  was  upon  him  for  the  dispersion  and  destruction  of  the 
lands  of  Clarencieux — of  the  terror  that  seized  him  lest  by 
some  mischance  any  portion  of  the  bitterness  of  his  fate  should 
be  spared  to  Chandos,  any  fragment  of  the  home  he  had  been 
exiled  from  be  saved  from  ignominy  and  outrage. 

"  Impassible?"  echoed  Phillippe  d'Orvale.  "  No  one  ever 
says  the  word  to  me!" 

There  was  all  the  suj)erb  defiance  of  the  old  nobles  of  Ver- 
sailles, all  the  disdainful  omnipotence  of  the  ancient  regime, 
in  the  reply.  When  he  would,  he  could  exert  his  command 
as  imperiously,  as  intolerantly,  as  any  marshal  of  Louis  Quinze. 

"  Indeed!     I  fear  his  creditors  will  sty  it." 

Trevenna  could  pause  neither  for  the  courtesies  of  custom 
nor  the  ceremonies  to  rank;  he  could  have  killed,  if  a  glance 
would  have  slain,  this  loathed  French  noble,  who,  with  his 
seigneur's  sympathies  and  his  aristocrat's  loyalty  to  his  order 
and  his  friend,  came  to  arrest  the  consummation  of  that  un- 
surjmssed  edifice  of  vengeance  which  he  had  erected,  at  such 
labor  and  with  such  genius,  to  crush  the  might  of  Clarencieux 
and  lie  heavy  above  a  suicide's  grave. 

A  fierce  oath,  passionate  as  a  tornado,  broke  from  under  the 
sweeping  beard  of  Due  Philippe,  wiiere  he  stood.  But  that 
his  patrician  honor  forbade  him  to  strike  a  man  whom  his 
patrician  pride  could  not  have  met  and  satisfied  as  his  equal, 
he  could  have  dashed  Trevenna  down  on  the  hearth  he  in- 
sulted, with  a  single  blow  of  his  stalwart  right  hand. 

"  Say  it?"  he  repeated.  "  By  God,  then,  they  shall  not. 
What!  parcel  his  lands  out  among  thieves?  let  a  broker  be 
master  here  in  his  stead?  sell  his  home  to  some  trader's  new 
gold?     Kever,  while  there  is  life  left  in  me!  never,  if  my  own 


276  GHANDOS. 

castles  are  mortgaged  over  my  head  to  get  the  money  they  ask! 
AVhere  is  your  country's  gratitude,  that  tiiey  let  his  fath<?r's 
memory  go  pawn?  "Where  are  all  those  he  benefited,  that 
there  is  not  a  voice  lifted  against  such  shame?" 

Trevenua  shrugged  his  shoulders.  That  this  man  was  a 
prince  and  a  millionaire  whom  he  bearded  he  cared  not  two 
straws:  he  only  remembered  Philippe  d'Orvale  as  a  madman 
with  whose  outrageous  follies  all  Europe  had  rung;  he  only 
remembered  him  as  one  who  clung  to  the  idol  the  world  had 
dethroned,  and  who  threatened  to  tear  down  the  tojDmost 
laurel-wreath  with  vvhich  his  own  hand  had  crowned  his  labor 
of  vengeance. 

"  Monseigneur  d'Orvale,"  he  said,  with  that  malicious 
banter  which  Trevenua  could  no  more  hold  back  in  his  wrath 
than  the  leoj^ard  in  his  will  hold  back  his  claws,  "  if  the  coun- 
try spent  its  money  on  every  great  man's  entravagant  cions,  it 
would  have  some  uncommonly  uncomfortable  legacies.  It 
don't  even  pay  its  own  debt;  deuce  take  me  if  I  can  see  why 
it  should  i^ay  Chandos's  because  his  father  once  was  first  lord  of 
its  treasury  and  he  has  seen  fit  to  squander  as  pretty  a  property 
as  ever  was  made  ducks  and  drakes  of  for  jHctures  and  dinners 
and  women.  As  for  those  he  benefited — granted  they're  a 
good  many;  but  if  a  lot  of  artists,  and  singers,  and  dancers, 
and  shabb}'  boys  who  think  themselves  Shakespeares,  and 
bearded  Bohemians  who  swig  beer  while  they  boast  themselves 
Raphaels,  were  all  to  club  together  to  hel^^  him  with  a  shilling 
subscription,  I  don't  suppose  they'd  manage  to  buy  back  much 
more  than  a  shelf  of  his  yellow  French  novels,  I'm  as  sorry 
for  him  as  you  can  be  (you  can't  doubt  my  sincerity,  I  shall 
never  get  such  good  dinners);  but  I  candidly  confess  I  don't 
see,  and  can't  see,  why,  just  because  he  has  been  a  fool  and  a 
spendthrift,  a  whole  nation  of  sane  people  are  bound  to  rush 
to  his  rescue  with  their  jjurses  wide  open.  As  he  sowed,  so  he 
reaps;  nobody  can  complain  of  that." 

Due  Philippe  shook  in  all  his  mighty  limbs;  and  as  he 
looked  at  the  speaker  planted  there  lightly,  firmly,  with  his 
feet  apart,  and  the  insolence  of  triumph  irrepressibly  spoken 
in  his  face  and  his  attitude,  he  could  have  leaped  forward  like 
a  staghound  and  shaken  all  the  life  out  of  him  with  a  single 
gripe.     It  was  with  a  mighty  efi'ort  that  he  kept  the  longing  in. 

*'  If  you  reap  as  you  sow.  Monsieur  Treveinia,  you  will  have 
<H,  fine  harvest  of  woven  hemp!"  he  said,  curtl}-,  in  the  depths 
of  his  brown  beard,  as  he  swung  with  an  undisguised  loathing 
from  him,  and  turned  toward  the  other  men,  who,  mute  with 
astonishment,  and  out  of  deference  for  the  rank  of  the  mad 


CHANDOS.  277 

noble  who  had  broken  in  on  them  thus,  stood  passive.  "  You 
are  his  men  of  business,  are  you  not — wreckers  enriched  by  the 
iiotsani  and  jetsam  you  save  out  of  his  shipwreck?  Listen  to 
mc,  then.  Whoever  they  be,  or  however  his  creditors  hold 
this  phice,  it  shall  be  mine.  Whatever  price  they  ask,  what- 
ever liabilities  be  on  it,  I  will  give  them  and  1  will  discharge. 
Let  theui  name  the  most  extravagant  their  extortion  can  grasp 
at,  it  shall  not  be  checked;  I  will  meet  it.  I  will  buy  Claren- 
cieux  as  it  is,  from  its  turrets  to  its  moor-lands;  do  you  hear? 
Not  a  tree  shall  be  touched,  not  a  picture  be  moved,  not  a 
stone  be  displaced.  It  shall  be  mine.  And,  hark  you  here;  I 
offer  them  their  own  terms — all  their  greed  can  crave  or  fancy; 
but  tell  them  this,  on  the  word  of  Philippe  d'0rvc41e,  that  if 
they  do  not  part  with  it  peaceably,  if  they  do  not  send  their 
hell-dogs  out  of  its  places  and  tai^e  the  bidding  I  give  them,  I 
will  so  blast  their  names  through  Europe  that  their  trade  and 
their  credit  shall  be  gone  forever,  and  they  shall  perish  in  worse 
beggary  than  this  that  they  have  caused.  Tell  them  that — • 
Europe  can  let  them  know  in  what  fashion  I  keep  my  oaths — 
and  with  to-morrow  make  Clarencieux  mine." 

The  passionate  words  quivered  out  on  the  silence  of  the 
painted  chamber,  furious  as  a  houcd's  bay,  firm  and  ringing 
as  an  army's  sound  to  assault.  Then,  without  another  syllable, 
Phillipe  d'Orvale  swung  round  and  strode  out  of  the  cabinet, 
his  lion  eyes  alight  with  a  terrible  menace,  his  lion's  mane  of 
hair  tossed  back.  He  had  said  enough.  When  once  he  roused 
from  his  wild  masquerades  and  his  headlong  Bohemianism  to 
use  his  leonine  might  and  to  vindicate  liis  princely  blood,  there 
was  not  a  man  in  all  the  breadth  of  the  nations  ihat  ever  dared 
say  nay  to  the  "  mad  duke."' 

He  saved  Clarencieux — saved  it  from  being  sundered  in  a 
thousand  pieces  and  given  over  to  the  spoilers,  though  he  could 
not  save  the  honor  of  its  house,  the  ruin  of  its  race.  The  world 
was  bitterly  aggrieved — it  was  deprived  of  so  absorbing  a  theme, 
of  so  precious  a  prize;  and  Trevenna  could  have  killed  him. 

The  pyramid  of  his  vengeance  had  risen  so  perfectly,  step 
by  step,  without  a  flaw;  it  was  unbearable  to  him  that  the  one 
stone  for  its  apex  should  be  wanting,  the  one  last  line  of  the 
record  of  the  triumphs  engraved  on  it  should  be  missing.  He 
had  swept  all  the  herds  away,  leaving  not  one;  it  was  unen- 
durable to  him  that  the  last  coveted  ewe-lamb  should  alone 
have  escaped  him.  He  had  destroyed  Chandos  utterly,  hope- 
lessly, body  and  soul,  as  he  believed — slam  honor  and  genius 
and  life  in  him,  without  a  pause  in  his  success.  It  was  in- 
tolerable to  him  that  the  last  drop  should  not  crown  the  cup, 


278  CHAKDOS. 

that  the  green  diadem  of  the  Clarencieux  woods  should 
wreathe  its  castle  untouched,  that  the  royalties  of  the  exiled 
race  should  be  left  in  sanctified  solitude,  in  lieu  of  being  flung 
out  to  the  crowds  and  parceled  among  the  Marseillaise  in  the 
desolate  courts  of  the  princes. 

He  had  longed  to  see,  had  it  been  possible,  the  plow  pass 
over  the  lands  and  the  harrow  rake  out  every  trace  of  the 
banished  race;  he  had  longed  to  see,  if  he  could,  the  flame  of 
tlie  culturer  licking  up  sll  the  beautiful,  wild,  useless  wealth 
of  heather  and  fern  and  forest  liHes;  he  had  longed  to  hear  the 
hammers  clang  among  the  woodland  stillness,  to  watch  the 
oaks  crash  down  under  the  ax,  to  behold  the  beauty  crushed 
out  under  the  iron  roll  and  the  timber  scaffolding  of  the  new 
speculators — to  know  that  the  very  place  and  name  and  relics 
of  the  exiled  lord  were  effaced  and  forgotten.  Through 
Philippe  d'Orvale  this  last  crowning,  luxury  was  denied. 

Clarencieux,  though  he  had  driven  from  it  the  last  of  its 
race,  escaped  him — escaped  the  indignity,  the  oblivion,  the 
desecration,  he  had  planned  to  heap  on  it;  he  had  made  its 
hearths  desolate,  but  his  arm  was  held  back  from  the  final 
blow  with  which  he  had  planned  to  make  them  also  dishonored 
and  to  raise  their  stones  as  though  no  fires  had  ever  burned 
there — till  sheep  should  have  grazed  where  kings  had  feasted, 
and  wheat  have  waved  where  its  dead  rulers  had  their  graves. 

Through  Philippe  d'Orvale  it  was  denied  him. 

Thus,  some  were  faithful  to  the  fallen  idol :  the  sun-browned 
men  who  toiled  from  dawn  to  evening  among  the  seas  of  seed- 
ing grass  and  the  yellow  oceans  of  the  swelling  corn;  the 
crippled  dreamer  whom  his  fellows  thought  an  idiot  that  a 
child  might  lead;  the  reckless  voluptuary,  the  prince-Bohemi- 
an, whom  the  world  called  a  madman  and  vested  with  every 
vice  that  libertines  can  frame;  the  dog  whom  human  reason 
disdains  as  a  brute  without  speech — those  were  faithful — 
those  only.     But  they  were  many,  as  the  world  stands. 

The  two  who  were  deadliest  against  him,  and  chiefest  with- 
out pity  or  mercy  in  his  fall,  were  the  man  he  had  siiccored 
with  his  friendship  and  his  gold,  and  the  woman  he  had  loved 
and  honored. 


[end  of  pakt  I.] 


CHANDOS. 


PAT^T    II. 
Delexi  justitiam  et  odivi  iniquitatem,  propterea  merior  in  exilio. 

HiLDEBRAND. 

Is  not  the  bread  thou  eat'st,  the  robe  thou  wear'st. 
Thy  wealth,  and  honors,  all  the  pure  indulgence 
Of  him  thou  wouldst  destroy'? 
Why,  then,  no  bond  is  left  on  human  kind, 

Dryden. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  FACILIS   DESCENSUS  AVERKI." 

It  was  far  past  midnight  in  Paris;  a  chilly,  bitter  winter's 
night,  in  the  turn  of  the  going  year;  a  night  without  stars,  in 
which  the  snow  drifted  slowly  down,  and  the  homeless  crouched 
down  shivering  into  a  traitorous  sleep — a  merciful  sleep,  from 
which  they  would  wake  no  more — an  endless  sleep,  to  be 
yearned  for  passionately  when  there  can  be  no  bread  for  the 
parching  lips,  if  breath  linger  in  them;  no  peace  for  the  aching 
eyes,  if  they  wake  again  to  a  world  of  want. 

It  was  long  past  midnight  in  one  of  the  gambling-dens  which 
mock  the  law  in  the  hidden  darkness  of  their  secret  haunts — 
the  dens  which  no  code  will  ever  suppress,  which  no  legislat- 
ure will  ever  prevent.  Where  any  vice  is  demanding,  there  wi  1 1 
be  the  supply;  let  every  shape  of  forbiddance  be  exercised  a 
it  may,  in  vain.  Wherever  men  be  hungered  for  their  owi; 
ruin,  there  will  be  also  those  who  bring  their  ruin  to  them. 

This  was  one  of  the  worst  hells  in  Paris — the  worst  in 
Europe.  Men  who  dared  venture  nowhere  else  came  here; 
men  on  whom  the  grasp  of  the  law  Avould  be  laid  were  they 
seen,  came  here ;  men  who,  having  exhausted  every  form  of 
riot  and  debauchery,  had  nothing  left  except  the  gamester's 
excitation,  came  here;  it  embraced  them  all,  and  finished  the 
wreck  that  other  ruin  had  begun.  Other  places  allured  with 
color,  with  glitter,  with  enticing  temptations:  this  had  none  of 
these;  it  allured  with  its  own  deadly  charm  alone,  it  made  its 


580  CHA]SrDOS. 

trade  terribly  naVed  and  avowed;  it  let  men  como  and  stake 
their  lives,  and  raked  the  stake  in,  and  went  on  without  a 
pause;  it  was  a  pandemoniac  paradise  only  for  those  already 
cursed.  It  was  hidden  away  in  one  of  the  foulest  and  most 
secret  nests  in  Paris;  its  haunt  was  known  to  none  save  its 
frequenters,  and  none  so  frequented  it  save  those  whom  some 
criminal  brand  or  some  desperate  doom  already  had  marked 
or  claimed.  Close  at  hand  to  it,  in  an  outer  chamber,  were 
the  hot  drinks,  the  acrid  wines,  the  absinthe,  and  the  opiates 
that  were  drunk  down  by  ashen  lips  and  burning  throats  as 
though  they  were  water;  these  alone  broke  the  ceaseless 
tenor  of  the  gambling;  these  alone  shared  with  it  the  days 
and  nights  of  those  who  plunged  into  the  abyss  it  opened  for 
them.  Often  all  on  through  the  dawn,  and  the  noon,  and  the 
day,  the  flaring  gas-jets  of  its  burners  would  be  kept  alight: 
the  crowd  that  filled  its  room  would  know  nothing  of  time — 
not  know  even  that  the  sun  had  risen.  The  gay  tumult  of 
the  summer  life  of  Paris  would  be  waking  and  shining  on  all 
around  it  in  the  clear  light  of  the  fresh  hours;  and  still  here 
where  the  sullen  doors  barred  out  all  comers  the  gamesters 
would  play  on,  play  on,  till  they  di'opped  down  dead-drunk, 
or  reeled  insensible  with  want  of  food,  and  drugs  or  nicotines. 
The  Morgue  had  never  owed  so  many  visitants  to  any  place 
as  it  had  owed  to  this;  tlie  Bagne  had  never  received  so  many 
desperadoes  as  it  had  received  from  here;  the  walls  of  Bicetre 
had  never  been  so  filled  with  raving  brainless  lives  as  it  had 
been  filled  with  by  the  haunters  of  this  den  hidden  in  the  midst 
of  curling  crooked  streets  and  crowding  roofs,  like  a  viper^s 
nest  under  the  swathes  of  grass. 

Those  who  owned  it  were  never  known;  the  longest  fre- 
quenter of  its  room  never  knew  who  the  bank  was;  it  was  a 
secret  profound,  impenetrable — guarded  as  closely  as  its  own 
existence  was  guarded  from  the  million  eyes  of  the  clairvoyant 
law.  No  one  knew  that  in  two  or  three  superb  hotels,  "with 
fine  carriages,  fine  dinners,  fine  linen,  with  fashionable  wives 
and  blameless  reputations,  with  a  high  name  on  the  Bourse  and 
a  reception  at  the  Tuileries,  dwelt,  in  peace  and  plenty — the 
proprietors. 

Does  the  world  ever  guess  how  a  millionth  part  of  the  money 
that  fills  it  is  made?     The  world  at  large,  never! 

It  was  far  past  midnight  in  the  hell;  the  gas-glare  fell  oa 
the  painted  faces  of  unsexed  women  and  on  the  haggard  broHs 
of  men  who  had  played  on  here  all  through  the  day  and  played 
on  through  the  night.  The  crouj)iers  were  relieved  at  in- 
tervals: the  gamblers  never  moved;  they  hung  there  till  tl^e 


CHANDOSr  281 

sheer  physical  powers  of  life  gave  way,  and  famine  forced  them 
from  the  tables;  stirless  and  breathless,  only  at  long  intervals 
rending  themselves  from  it  to  take  the  drugs  and  the  stimu- 
lants that  soddened  their  senses,  they  were  riveted  there  by 
one  universal,  irresistible  fascination.  Features  of  every 
varied  kind  were  seen  in  the  gaudy  flare  of  the  gas;  but  they 
all  wore  the  same  look — the  thirsty,  sleepless,  intense  look  of 
ravenous  excitement.  It  was  not  the  poHshed  serenity  of 
fashionable  kursaals,  the  impassive  languor  of  aristocratic 
gaming-tables,  the  self-destruction,  taken  with  a  light  word, 
of  the  salles  of  Baden,  of  Homburg,  of  Monaco;  it  was  gam- 
bling in  all  its  unreined  fever,  in  all  its  naked  excitation,  iu 
all  its  headlong  delirium,  in  all  "  its  arid  quest  for  wealth 
midst  ruin.^' 

There  is  a  vast  error  in  which  the  world  believes — that 
gamesters  are  moved  by  the  lust  of  gain  only,  by  the  desire  of 
greed,  by  the  longings  of  avarice.  It  is  not  so;  the  money 
won,  tliey  toss  it  back  v/ithout  an  instant^s  pause,  to  risk  its 
loss  at  venture.  Avarice  is  no  part  of  the  delirium  which 
allures  them  with  so  exhaustless  a  fascination;  the  spell  that 
binds  them  is  the  hazard.  Give  a  gamester  thousands,  he 
cares  for  the  gold  only  to  purchase  with  it  that  delicious, 
feverish,  intoxicating  charm  of  chance.  There  is  a  delight  in 
its  agony,  a  sweetness  in  its  insanity,  a  drunken,  glorious  in- 
tensity of  sensation  in  its  limitless  swing  between  a  prince's 
treasures  and  a  beggar's  death,  whicli  lends  life  a  sense  never 
known  before — rarely,  indeed,  once  tasted,  ever  abandoned. 

There  was  scarcely  even  a  sound  in  the  fatal  place.  Once 
now  and  then  an  oath,  a  blas23hemy,  or  a  shuddering  gasping 
breath  broke  the  charmed  stillness,  in  which  the  click  of  the 
roulette-ball,  the  rattle  of  the  dice,  or  the  rapid  monotone  of 
the  croupiers  reigned  otherwise  alone.  The  room  was  crowded. 
Men  who  had  grown  old  and  gray  and  palsied  waiting  on  the 
caprices  of  the  color — men  who  had  wasted  on  the  framing  of 
cabals  intellects  that  might  have  rivaled  Newton's  or  i)es- 
cartes's — men  who  had  consumed  their  youth  in  this  madness, 
and,  young  yet,  looked  for  nothing  save  a  death  in  a  hospital 
and  a  iiauper's  unowned  grave — men  who  had  flung  away  high 
birth,  high  gifts,  high  chances,  and  came  here  to  wear  out  the 
few  last  hours  of  dishonored  lives — men  with  eyes  in  which  the 
wasted  genius  of  a  mighty  mind  looked  wistfully  out  through 
the  bloodshot  mists  of  a  drunkard's  sight — men  who  had  the 
trackers  of  turf-law  or  of  social  law  in  their  trail,  and,  hiding 
for  very  life,  knew  no  nest  surer  than  this  foul  one — all  these 
were  here  in  the  tawdry  glitter  of  the  flaring  gas-jets.     And 


283  CHANDOS. 

there  were  women,  too — some  young,  some  feai'fully  young- 
loveless  and  rouged,  and  hacking  bitter  coughs,  or  laughing 
ghastly  laughs,  playing,  playing,  playing  insatiate,  with  the 
thirsty,  eager,  devilish  glare  aching  in  their  painted  eyes. 

Among  them  stood  Chandos. 

The  look  which  had  set  on  his  face  the  night  that  he  had 
left  Clarencieux  had  never  left  it;  its  glorious  beauty  survived 
the  ravages  of  misery,  the  gaunt  sleeplessness  of  a  gamester's 
days,  the  wreck  of  all  greater,  better,  higher  things  in  him. 
Nothing  could  stamp  it  out  utterly;  but  it  had  something  more 
fearful  than  any  one  of  the  other  faces  crowded  round  them, 
though  they  would  have  furnished  a  painter  with  a  thousand 
dreams  for  tlie  Purgatorio,  though  they  would  have  given  an 
artist  a  throng  of  hope-forgotten,  devil-tortured  wretches 
fettered  in  the  bottomless  circle  of  Dante's  Antenora.  It  sur- 
vived to  show  all  that  he  had  been — to  mark  more  utterly  all 
he  had  become. 

For  he  had  fallen  very  low. 

To  meet  his  ruin,  he  had  risen  with  the  haughty  pride,  the 
reckless  courage  of  his  race — risen  to  front  it  with  a  calmness 
and  a  force  that  none  had  looked  for  in  him.  He  had  met 
calamity  greatly;  he  had  been  tempted  to  sell  his  honor  for 
passion's  sake,  and  he  had  repulsed  the  temptation;  he  had 
been  allured  to  evade  justice,  and  secure  comparative  peace, 
by  acting  a  lie  to  the  world;  he  had  refused,  and  had  given  up 
all,  to  remain  with  a  stainless  honesty  and  a  conscience  uncon- 
demned.  He  had  done  these  things  with  a  sudden  power  of 
will,  a  sudden  steel-knit  strength  of  resolve,  that  had  sprung 
in  the  instant  of  their  need,  giants,  full-armed,  from  the  vo- 
luptuous unheeding  indolence  and  indulgence  of  his  life.  But 
characters  can  not  change  in  a  day;  endurance  may  be  forged 
hard  in  the  flame  of  adversity,  but  it  will  give  way  many  a 
time  first,  and  melt  and  writhe  and  bend  and  break  at  last. 
When  all  had  been  done,  all  ended,  all  sacrificed,  all  lost,  the 
force  which  had  sustained  him  had  broken  down,  the  utter 
reaction  followed. 

The  habits  of  his  life  had  left  him  with  no  shield,  the  tem- 
per of  his  creeds  had  left  him  with  no  shelter,  against  the 
storm  that  had  burst  over  him.  His  only  knowledge  had  been 
how  to  enjoy;  none  had  ever  taught  him  how  to  suffer.  A 
limitless  indulgence  had  been  the  master  of  his  existence;  he 
had  no  comprehension  of  calamity.  With  latent  greatness,  he 
had  dominant  weakness;  as  the  limbs  that  lie  ever  on  couches 
of  down  are  enervated  and  sinewless,  so  his  nature,  that  had 
basked  ever  in  the  warmth  and  the  hght  of  enjoyment,  had 


CHANDOS.  383 

no  stamina  to  bear  the  crushing  desolation  that  struck  all  from 
his  hands  at  one  blow.  In  the  moment  of  emergence,  of 
temptation,  he  had  risen  equal  to  it,  risen  above  it,  and  been 
great;  in  the  darkness  that  followed,  in  the  darkness  in  which 
he  was  driven  out  into  exile,  stripped,  mocked,  abandoned, 
left  in  beggared  sohtude,  to  drift  to  his  grave  as  he  would,  he 
sunk  under  the  burden  that  he  bore.  A  strong  man  might 
have  gone  down  powerless  under  the  accumulated  anguish, 
the  blasted  devastation,  of  such  a  fate.  He  who  had  known 
nothing  but  the  caress  of  fortune  from  his  birth,  he  who  had 
all  the  loathing  of  pain  and  of  deformity  of  the  Achaean  nat- 
ure, he  who  had  never  felt  a  desire  unfulfilled,  a  command  un- 
accomplished, he  who  had  been  pliant  to  frailty,  yielding  to 
effeminacy,  could  have  no  sustaining  force  to  enable  him  to 
face  and  to  contend  with  the  destruction  that  smote  him  to 
the  earth.  All  who  had  kissed  his  feet  forsook  him  as  though 
he  were  plague-stricken;  there  was  little  marvel  that  he  for- 
sook himself. 

He  seemed  to  walk  like  a  blind  man  through  a  starless 
night;  he  had  neither  sight  nor  knowledge:  ail  that  was  left 
to  him  was  the  consciousness  of  misery,  the  power  to  suffer; 
the  power  to  endure  was  dead.  He  drifted  senselessly  on,  far 
on  evil  roads,  far  toward  the  murder  in  him  of  all  that  he  had 
once  been.  He  lived  in  infinite  wretchedness,  and  the  very 
memory  of  all  better  things  died  out  in  him.  There  is  no 
arrest  in  a  downward  road.  In  the  way  of  honor  and  honesty, 
and  every  holier  thought  and  loftier  efl'ort,  life  piles  obstacles 
breast  high;  but  in  descent  there  is  no  barrier,  down  the  ice- 
slope  there  is  no  pause,  till  the  broken  limbs  are  dashed  to 
pieces  in  the  black  crevasse  below. 

When  his  last  step  had  passed  the  threshold  of  his  home,  he 
had  left  all  likeness  of  what  he  once  had  been.  There  the 
proud  blood  of  his  race  had  taken  the  simulance  of  strength, 
and  had  upheld  in  him  some  likeness  of  their  honor,  of  their 
power,  of  their  grandeur,  even  beneath  the  strokes  of  his  ad- 
versity; but  once  passed  forever  from  Clarencieux,  the  only 
influence  that  had  sustained  him  was  gone;  he  fell  without  an 
effort.  His  foe  might  have  been  consoled  for  the  one  failure 
which  had  saved  the  woods  and  the  stones  of  his  hatred  from 
destruction  had  he  seen  how  courage  and  reason  and  genius 
and  manhood  were  perishing  with  the  body  and  the  soul  of  the 
man  he  had  betrayed. 

In  the  sheer  instinct  for  covert  in  which  the  hunted  animal 
unconsciously  finds  his  lair,  he  had  made  his  way  to  the  safe 


S84  CHANDOS. 

solitude  and  secrecy  of  a  great  city.  Fe  shunnefl  every  sign, 
every  sight,  that  could  recall  the  world  he  had  left  to  him,  or 
him  to  it.  The  place  of  his  refuge  was  known  to  none;  it  was 
hidden  among  the  innumerable  roofs  of  a  close  quarter;  it  was 
quitted_  only  at  night  or  in  the  earliest  gray  of  the  morning, 
and  quitted  then  oiily  for  the  gambling-dens.  There  was  not 
a  creature  with  him  or  near  him  tliat  he  had  known  or  loved, 
save  his  dog.  The  animal  never  left  him;  he  would  lie  at  his 
feet  m  the  gaming-hells,  or  would  wait  all  day  and  all  night 
outside  the  doors;  he  would  crouch  down  by  him  on  the  cold 
and  cheerless  bed  of  some  wretched  lodging,  as  he  had  done 
under  the  silken  hangings  of  a  palace;  he  would  watch  with 
ever-wakeful  eyes  by  his  side  where  he  was  stretched  in  the 
stupor  of  an  opiate  or  the  heaviness  of  brandy-lulled  slee]). 
The  love  even  of  the  dog  was  precious  to  Chandos  in  his  deso- 
lation: as  far  as  he  noted  or  felt  anything,  he  was  grateful  for 
it.  But  he  noted  little.  A  burning  fever  consumed  him  at 
times;  at  all  others  he  was  sunk  in  a  lethargy  more  dangerous 
for  his  reason  than  even  the  oblivion  of  opium-dreams.  The 
loss  of  lands,  of  wealth,  of  power,  he  would  have  met  with  the 
courage  of  race  and  of  manhood;  it  was  the  desertion  of  every 
creature  he  had  aided,  of  every  life  he  had  loved,  it  was  the 
Judas-betrayal  of  all  he  had  trusted,  that  had  killed  all 
strength  and  all  life  in  him. 

lie  lived  in  intense  wretchedness;  the  little  gold  he  had  on 
his  person  w^as  not  so  much  as  he  had  spent  on  a  woman's 
bracelet,  on  an  hour's  entertainment.  The  absolnte  fangs  of 
want  might  be  upon  him  in  a  single  day.  He  who  had  feasted 
emperors  more  brilliantly  than  they  reigned  in  their  own 
courts,  and  who  had  only  spoken  a  wish  to  have  it  fulfilled  as 
by  enchantment,  might  any  Jay  want  actually  bread.  Every- 
thing around  him,  everything  touched  or  seen  or  heard,  was 
such  as  would  have  been  loathsome  and  unendurable  to  his 
voluptuous  and  fastidious  habits  a  few  short  weeks  before:  yet 
these  he  was  barely  conscious  of;  he  was  lost  in  the  stupefac- 
tion of  a  misery  too  great  to  have  any  other  sense  awake  in  it. 
Now  and  then  he  would  glance  with  a  shudder  round  the 
places  to  which  he  wandered;  now  and  then  he  would  turn 
sickening  from  the  food  offered  him;  more  often  all  things 
passed  him  unnoted,  and  in  his  eyes  there  came  gradually  the 
lusterless  dreamy  vacancy  which  presages  the  rupture  of  the 
reason,  the  dulling  of  the  brain.  For  hours  he  would  lie  pros- 
trated. When  he  rose,  it  would  only  be  to  drag  his  limbs 
wearily  out  into  the  night  and  go  to  the  gaming-hells,  where 
intoxication  as  sure,  and  even  .^let  more  deadly,  was   to  be 


CHANDOS.  285 

founrl,  where  alone  lie  gained  such  gold  as  sufficed  to  keep  life 
in  him,  and  to  give  him  a  stake  to  cast  again. 

Strangely  enough,  the  temptress  favored  him.  Hazard 
often  aliures  her  prey  with  that  merciless  mercy,  and  fills  his 
hands  only  to  hold  him  closer  in  her  coils.  He  won  enough  to 
keep  life  in  him — such  as  life  was  now. 

This  was  the  issue  to  which  his  career  had  come;  this  was 
the  fate  to  which  he,  who  is  his  bright  visionary  childhood  had 
vowed  to  rival  in  his  nation's  story  the  chivalrous  honor  of  an 
Arthur's  fame,  had  come;  his  pride  trampled  out,  his  genius 
drowned  in  drugs,  his  waking  hours  consumed  in  the  gam- 
bler's delirium,  ahnost  all  manhood  slain  in  him.  The  He- 
brew's thought  was  right:  his  enemy's  work  on  him  was  worse 
than  murder.  It  was  a  terrible  abasfiraent,  a  terrible  sur- 
render; it  was  frailty,  cowardice,  suicide;  but  the  storn)  had 
beaten  down  on  his  once  proud  head  till  it  hung  in  a  slave's 
shame.  Existence  had  grown  so  hideous  to  him  that  he  sunk 
beneath  its  ceaseless  torture,  longing  alone  for  death. 

Those  who  have  from  early  years  been  tried  in  the  fires  of 
affliction  may  grow  the  sterner,  firmer,  more  highly  tempered 
for  it,  like  the  wrought  steel;  but  those  to  whom  it  has  been 
wholly  unknown  in  the  soft  sensuousness  of  a  joyous  life,  stac- 
geraud  fall  swooning  at  the  first  intolerable  breath  of  its  blast- 
ing furnace.  When  a  mortal  is  bound  to  the  agony  of  Prome- 
theus, the  man  may  well  succumb  where  the  god  could  scarce 
endure. 

Chandos  stood  now  amidst  the  crowd  about  the  play-tables, 
in  companionship  with  much  of  all  that  was  worst  and  most 
desperate  in  Paris.  He  did  not  know  them;  he  scarcely  knew 
how  vile  the  character  of  many  round  him  was.  In  the  brill- 
iance and  the  aristocratic  exclusion  of  the  life  he  had  until  now 
lived,  he  had  been  as  ignorant  of  the  world  without  his 
charmed  circle,  he  had  been  as  ignorant  of  all  depravity 
that  was  unrefined,  of  all  vices  that  were  hidden  away  with 
poverty  and  criminality,  as  any  one  of  the  fair  patrician 
women  of  the  courts.  His  license  had  been  the  license  of  a 
graceful  Catullus;  his  sins  had  been  the  soft  sins  of  an  elegant 
Sardanapalus;  he  knew  nothing  of  the  ignominy  of  great 
cities;  he  knesv  nothing  of  the  coarse  criminality  of  such  as 
those  who  harbored  and  gambled  here.  He  had  stniyed  to  its 
haunt  by  chance;  he  returned  again  and  again  for  the  sake  of 
its  secrecy,  its  opium-drugged  wines,  its  reckless  jday.  He 
liad  no  knowledge  of  the  companions  with  whom  he  was 
thrown;  he  was  too  utterly  lost  in  his  own  misery  to  note  or 
to  loathe  them,  whilst  they  looked  on,  half  awed,  half  curious, 


286  CHANDOS. 

at  one  whom  all  Paris  knew  by  name  and  sight,  whose  history 
all  knew  also,  as  he  came  among  them  day  after  day,  night 
ufter  night,  with  that  deathless  beauty,  that  inextinguishable 
grace  left  in  him,  as  they  were  left  in  the  slaughtered  body  of 
Alcibiades,  to  show  how  royal  a  blood  had  run  in  his  veins, 
how  mighty,  how  majestic,  how  hopeless  a  wreck  was  there. 

Once  one  of  them  touched  his  arm — a  young  girl,  not 
twenty,  but  with  long  years  of  age  and  crime  and  shameless 
shame  under  the  scarlet  rouge  that  glowed  her  cheek,  on  the 
sallow,  aching,  burning  brow  from  which  her  gold-hued, 
flower-decked  hair  was  pushed. 

"  Why  are  you  here?  You  are  as  beautiful  as  a  god!  You 
are  not  like  us — jet." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  dull  vacancy,  and  answered  noth- 
ing, as  he  filled  a  glass  with  brandy.  She  thrust  the  opiate  he 
had  mixed  with  it  back  to  his  hand. 

"  Drink  enough  to  kill  yourself  at  once.  Don't  live  to  be 
what  you  will  be.     Such  as  you  go  to  a  mad-house." 

Her  words  dreamily  pierced  through  the  semi-insensibility  of 
his  brain:  he  set  the  opiate  down  undruuk — for  that  once.  He 
thought  of  the  dead  man  who  had  bade  him  meet  his  fate, 
whatever  his  fate  became;  but  the  next  moment  he  was  again 
at  the  gaming-table,  the  next  moment  only  its  mad  tempting 
was  remembered. 

He  never  heeded  what  he  won,  what  ho  lost,  though  he  knew 
that  the  very  food  of  the  next  day  hung  in  the  hazard ;  he 
would  have  blessed  the  famine  that  should  have  killed  him. 
But  he  had  the  gamester's  instinct  in  him;  the  gamester's 
peril  alone  gave  him  an  oblivious  intoxication;  he  never  left  it, 
except  when  he  wandered  out  to  some  sleeping-jjlace  and  flung 
himself  down  to  sleep,  well-nigh  as  lifelessly  as  the  dead  sleep, 
hours,  perhaps  days  through. 

So  months  had  gone  with  him.  The  splendid  strength  and 
stamina  of  his  frame  resisted  the  ravages  that  were  consuming 
them;  but  what  was  worse  than  the  body  perished:  the  mind 
decayed,  swiftly,  surely. 

Months  went  by;  he  thought  time  would  never  end.  The 
golden  summer,  the  ruddy  autumn,  the  bitterness  of  early 
winter,  had  passed;  he  noted  no  change  of  seasons;  night  and 
day  were  alike  to  him;  he  only  dully  wondered  how  long  life 
would  curse  him  by  leaving  its  throb  in  his  heart,  the  breath 
in  his  Kps. 

He  had  played  thirty-six  hours  now  at  a  stretch,  among  the 
painted  women  and  the  haggard  men  who  filled  this  pande- 
monium.    He  had  played  on  till  he  had  lost  all — the  only  time 


CHANDOS.  28? 

that  he  had  ever  done  so;  the  last  franc  was  staked  and  swept 
away.  He  stood  blankly  gazing  down  at  the  tables;  he  felt 
that  the  means  of  gaining  the  one  intoxication  that  was  pre- 
cious to  him  was  gone,  he  had  no  remembrance  that  it  turned 
him  on  the  streets  a  beggar.  The  eager  throngs,  seeing  the 
card  pass  without  his  stake  being  laid  on  it,  pushed  fiercely^ 
ravenously,  to  get  his  nearer  place.  He  let  them  take  ity 
moving  as  a  somnambulist,  and  made  his  way  out  down  the 
staircase  and  through  the  low,  masi\ed  side  door  that  alone 
lent  admittance  to  the  gambling-rooms:  the  face  of  the  house 
was  merely  a  fruiterer's  and  a  tobacconist's  shops.  He  went 
out  mechanically;  he  knew  he  must  get  more  gold  or  go  with- 
out this,  which  had  become  the  single  craving  necessity  of  life. 
"Where?  He  who  had  owned  the  aristocracies  of  whole  nations 
as  his  friends,  and  had  given  to  all  who  asked,  as  though  the 
world  were  his,  had  not  a  shilling  now  to  get  him  bread. 

He  walked  on  aimlessly,  unheeding  the  snow  which  poureti 
down  on  his  bare  hearl,  the  cutting  north  wind  that  blew  like 
an  ice-blast.  It  was  between  three  and  four  in  the  morning; 
there  was  scarce  a  soul  abroad.  In  the  quarter  where  he  was 
few  carriages  ever  rolled,  and  the  thieves  and  revelers  who 
filled  it  were  mostly  housed  in  some  den  or  another  in  the  in- 
clement W'eather.  The  dog  followed  hmi  closely;  otherwise 
he  was  almost  alone  in  the  tortuous,  endless  streets,  whose 
windings  he  took  without  knowing  whither  they  led  him.  The 
bitter  rush  of  the  wind  lifted  the  masses  of  his  hau',  the  sleet 
drove  in  his  eyes,  the  cold  chilled  him  to  the  bone;  he  was 
adrift  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  without  a  sou  to  get  him  food  or 
bed — he  who  a  few  months  before  had  I'eigned  there  in  a  splen- 
dor passing  the  splendor  of  princes! 

He  longed  for  death — longed  as  never  man  yet  longed  for 
life.  The  unspeakable  physical  misery  alone  passed  his 
strength;  to  the  nerves  that  had  shrunk  from  pain,  to  the 
senses  that  had  been  steeped  in  every  pleasure,  to  the  tastes 
that  had  loathed  unsightliness  as  a  torture,  to  the  habits  that 
had  been  enervated  in  all  the  richness  of  enjoyment  the 
wretchedness  that  was  now  his  portion  was  horrible  beyond 
the  utterance.  He  who  had  never  known  what  an  hour's 
sulferbig,  what  a  moment's  denial,  were,  now  endured  cold, 
and  exposure,  and  need  of  food,  and  all  the  racking  pangs  of 
want  and  fever,  like  any  houseless  beggar  starving  in  the 
night. 

He  wandered  on  and  on — still  always  in  the  same  quarter, 
still  always  keeping,  by  sheer  instinct,  far  from  all  that  he  had 
once  known — far  from  all  that  had  so  lately  seen  him  in  tho 


288  CHANDOS. 

magnificence  of  his  reign.  He  wandered  on,  under  the  lower- 
ing walls  of  pent-up  dwellings,  through  the  driving  of  the 
slowly  falling  snow,  against  the  cutting  breath  of  the  ice-cliill 
air.  A  strange  faiutness  stole  on  him,  a  strange  numbness 
seized  his  limbs;  he  began  to  lose  all  sense  of  the  keen  blasts 
that  blew  against  him;  the  intensity  of  cold  began  to  yield 
place  to  a  dreamy  exhaustion  and  prostration,  half  weary,  half 
soothing:  he  felt  sleep  stealing  on  him — deep  as  death.  He 
had  no  wish  to  resist,  no  power  to  overcome  it;  the  languor 
stole  over  all  his  frame,  his  limbs  failed  him;  he  sunk  down 
and  stretched  himself  out  as  on  some  welcome  bed,  with  a 
heav}'  sigh,  lying  tiiere  on  the  snow-covered  ground,  with  the 
snow  falling  on  his  closed  eyes  and  the  wind  winding  among 
his  hair.  The  dog  couched  down  and  pressed  its  silky  warmth 
against  his  breast;  profound  rest  stole  on  him:  he  knew  no 
BQore. 


CHAPTER  II. 

*' WHEK2:   ALL   LIFE   PIES,    DEATH    LIVES. ''* 

There  was  intense  solitude  in  the  dark,  cheerless  night; 
t'je  snow  drifted  noiseless  down;  now  and  then  the  wild  winus 
broke  and  howled  with  a  hollow  moan:  all  else  was  very  still 
— still  as  the  starless,  ink-black  skies  that  bent  above.  One 
shadow  alone  moved  through  the  gloom  that  a  yellow  lamp- 
light here  and  there  only  served  to  make  more  impenetrable — 
a  shadow  frail,  bent,  delicate  as  a  woman^s,  feeble  as  that  of 
age — the  shadow  of  a  cripple. 

He  dragged  himself  along  with  slow  and  painful  effort; 
when  he  passed  under  one  of  the  lamps,  its  glare  shone  on  a 
fair  face  and  spiritual,  with  great  dark  dreaming  eyes,  that 
looked  out  at  the  snow-flakes  wearily — the  face  of  Guido 
Lulli.  The  fragile,  helpless,  pain-worn  Provencal,  who  shud- 
dered from  cold  as  a  young  fawn  will  shudder  in  it,  and  who 
had  barely  till  now  quitted  the  chamber  where  he  wove  his 
melodious  fancies  and  forgot  a  world  with  which  he  could  have 
no  share,  was  out  in  the  bitterness  of  the  winter's  night,  on  a 
quest  that  his  fidelity  had  never  slackened  in  through  many 
months  of  vain  toil  and  fruitless  search.  The  search  was  end- 
ed now. 

His  foot  touched  the  outflungarm  of  the  form  that  lay  pros- 
trate, half  on  the  stone  of  the  steps  on  which  it  had  sunk,  half 
on  the  road  to   which  the  limbs  had  been  stretched  in  the 


CHANDOS.  389 

strange  peace  and  languor  which  had  come  with  the  slumber 
of  cold  and  fasting. 

The  snow  had  fallen  faster  and  heavily  in  the  last  few  mo- 
ments; it  covered  tlie  hands,  and  was  shed  white  and  thicic 
upon  the  uncovered  hair  and  upturned  brow.  A  lamp  burned 
just  above;  its  flicker,  glowing  dully  through  the  raw  gray 
mist,  shone  on  the  death-like  calm  of  the  features  in  the 
breathless  rest  of  sleep  from  which  few  ever  waken.  Lulli 
stooped  and  looked,  then,  with  a  great  cry,  sunk  down  on  his 
knees  beside  the  senseless  form.  He  knew  it  in  a  glance,  all 
changed  though  it  was:  his  search  was  over. 

The  dog  lifted  his  head  and  gave  a  moaning  of  recognition, 
half  of  joy,  half  of  entreaty;  but  he  would  not  stir  from  where 
he  crouched  on  his  master's  breast,  lending  with  his  warm 
breath  and  his  curly  hair  and  his  massive  strength  such  aid 
and  protection  as  he  could  against  the  blasts  of  the  storm  and 
the  chills  of  the  night.     If  any  life  lingered,  he  had  saved  it. 

*'  My  master!  Found  at  last,  and  found — oh,  God! — too 
late!"  cried  Lulli,  as  he  strove,  all  weak  and  feeble  as  he  was, 
to  raise  the  prostrate  form  in  his  arms,  to  draw  the  limbs  from 
the  road,  to  rest  the  head  against  his  bosom,  to  dash  the  snow 
from  the  wet  hair,  and  to  chafe  the  stagnant  chillness  of  the 
frozen  hands. 

"  Monseigneur,  monseigneur!  is  it  thus  with  thee?"  mur- 
mured the  Proven9al,  in  the  loving  sweetness  of  his  Southern 
tongue,  while  the  great  tears  coursed  down  his  cheeks  and  fell 
fast  as  the  snow-flakes  on  the  brow  and  eyes  of  Chandos — the 
brow  that  was  contracted  even  in  senselessness  as  with  an  un- 
bearable pain,  the  eyes  that  were  closed  so  heavily,  so  wearily, 
the  long  thick  lashes  lying  on  the  cheek  white  as  the  snow- 
covered  stone  on  which  it  had  been  resting. 

The  musician  loved  him  with  a  tenderness  intense  and  en- 
during; and  there  was  something  that  might  have  moved  a 
heart  f;ir  less  warm  than  the  lonely  cripple's  in  the  sight  of 
the  magnificent  limbs  stretched  lifeless  as  a  corpse,  of  the 
drooped  head  that  hung  like  the  head  of  the  dead,  of  the  hair, 
that  women  had  loved  to  toy  with,  dank  and  dogged  with 
moisture,  and  of  the  features,  only  of  late  so  brilliant  with 
genius  and  with  life,  haggard,  colorless,  and  drawn  as  by  death, 
in  the  tawny  flickering  glare  of  the  swinging  lamp  above. 

Lulli  laid  his  hand  upon  the  heart;  it  beat  dully,  faintly; 
the  dog's  nestling  body  had  preserved  existence  where  other- 
wise in  the  bitter  cold  and  dangerous  sleep  the  pulse  of  the 
blood  must  have  ceased.  Lulli  looked  round  wiidly,  and  raised 
his  voice  in  a  shout  for  aid ;  helpless  and  weak  as  he  was  in  all 


290  CHANDOS; 

actions  for  himself,  Io3^alty  and  gratitude  gave  him  the  strength 
of  giants  to  save  tlie  man  who  in  his  own  extremity  had  saved 
him. 

Tiiere  was  no  answer  to  his  call.  He  was  alone  in  the  bleak- 
ness and  the  darkness  of  the  wintery  dawn,  with  one  whom  he 
firmly  believed  to  be  dying — dying  of  cold,  of  exposure,  and 
of  want;  the  man  whom  but  a  year  before  he  had  known  in 
every  luxury  and  every  pleasure  that  the  world  could  give — • 
the  man  who  had  come  to  him  in  the  summer-heats  of  Spain 
as  the  savior  of  his  life  and  art,  who  had  seemed  to  him  the 
very  incarnation  of  beauty,  of  joy,  of  splendid  manhood,  of 
proud,  rejoicing,  perfect  strength. 

In  his  desperation  he  found  the  force  that  nature  had  denied 
his  limbs  and  nerves;  he  raised  the  insensible  form  up  from 
the  snow  in  which  it  sunk  half  buried;  he  stripped  himself  of 
the  furs  he  wore  and  covered  Chandos's  chest  with  them;  he 
chafed  his  liands  and  pressed  them  against  his  own  lips  to  give 
them  warmth;  he  shouted  for  help  till  his  voice  rang  down  the 
deserted  street,  waking  all  its  hollow  echoes,  and  died  away 
unanswered. 

The  roll  of  a  carriage  coming  slowly,  and  muffled  on  the 
white  roads,  smote  on  his  ear  at  last;  he  raised  a  louder  cry, 
with  all  the  power  he  could  gatlier.  He  heard  a  woman's 
voice  from  the  interior  bid  the  coachman  stop  and  wait.  In 
tho  dull  gleam  of  the  lamp  he  could  see  the  glitter  of  jewels 
flash  as  she  leaned  out;  her  words  came  strangely  clear  to  him 
thirough  the  frosty  darkness,  as  she  asked,  in  French — 

"  What  is  it?'^ 

"  One  dying — and  from  cold!"  he  answered  her,  his  voice 
thick  and  tremulous  with  the  sobs  that  shook  him  like  a  child, 

"  Dying!  Wait  while  I  see,''  said  the  voice  he  had  heard, 
as  the  form  he  could  dimly  perceive  through  the  gloom  swayed 
from  the  carriage-steps  and  came  toward  him;  a  woman  who 
had  been,  who  indeed  was  still,  very  lovely;  a  woman  whose 
youth  was  waning,  but  who  still  was  young;  a  woman  in  rich 
costly  draperies  that  the  yellow  light  glittered  on,  and  with 
the  blue  gleam  of  sapphires  above  her  brow.  She  was  the 
Iwnne,  Beatrix  Lennox. 

A  moment,  and  she  stood  beside  Lulli,  disregarding  the 
saow-flakes  that  drove  against  her,  and  the  icy  wind  that  blew 
through  her  scarlet  cashmeres.  She  was  a  woman  of  swift  im- 
pulse, of  warm  pity. 

"  Is  he  dying,  you  say?"  she  asked,  with  an  infinite  gentle- 
ness in  her  voice,  while  she  stooped  to  look  at  the  prostrate 
form.     She  started  with  a  loud  cry. 


CHANDOS.  391 

"  Chandos! — merciful  Heaven!" 

Her  lips  turned  very  pale — not  her  cheek,  for  that  was  warm 
with  a  bright  delicate  bloom  of  rouge — and  into  her  eyes  the 
tears  sprung  salt  and  full.     Her  voice  trembled. 

"  Oh,  Heaven,  what  a  wreck!  I  have  seen  so  many,  yet 
never  one  like  this!'^ 

She  was  silent  a  moment,  gazing  down  at  the  senseless  feat- 
ures, and  softly  touching,  with  a  caressing  hand,  the  dead  gold 
of  the  hair,  all  wet  and  whitened  by  the  driving  of  the  snow. 
Then  she  turned  with  a  nervous  energy;  she  was  impetuons 
and  rapid,  and  firm  in  act. 

"  He  is  not  dead,"  she  said,  impatiently;  "  but  he  will  die 
if  he  stays  there.  Lift  him  into  my  carriage,  quick!  We 
must  get  him  warmth  and  stimulants;  my  house  is  so  far  oif, 
and  there  is  no  fit  place  here — " 

"  My  lodging  is  not  distant.  Let  him  come  there,"  plead- 
ed Lulli,  piteously,  while  he  drew  the  inanimate  hands  closer 
into  his  own,  as  though  afraid  he  should  be  robbed  again  of 
the  one  so  long  lost,  so  terribly  found. 

"  Yes,  yes;  anywhere  that  is  near!"  she  answered,  rapidly, 
while  she  flung  the  scarlet  down-lined  draperies  she  wore  about 
the  half-dead  limbs,  and  stood,  regardless  of  the  blasts  that 
howled,  and  of  the  heavy  icy  mists  that  descended  on  the  earth 
like  sheets  of  solid  water,  as  her  servants,  at  her  bidding, 
raised  him  and  laid  him  gently  down  upon  the  cushions  of 
her  carriage.  She  felt  nothing  of  the  searching  wind,  nothing 
of  the  drenching  storm,  nothing  of  the  flakes  that  were  driven 
against  her  delicate  skin  and  her  masked-ball  dress.  Here 
eyes  were  dim  with  tears;  her  lips  shook;  her  heart  ached. 

"  How  many  fallen  I  have  seen!"  her  thoughts  ran;  "yet 
never  such  a  fall  as  his. " 

When  life  and  sense  returned  to  Chandos,  he  was  stretclied 
before  a  wood-fire,  that  shed  its  ruddy,  uncertain  light  over  a 
darkened  room;  the  dog  was  licking  his  hands  and  murmur- 
ing its  love  over  him  where  he  lay;  and  beside  him,  watching 
him,  were  the  musician  and  the  richly  hued  and  delicate  form 
of  the  famous  Bohemian,  Beatrix  Lennox. 

He  looked  up  with  a  weary  sigh;  he  knew  neither  of  them; 
his  mind  was  dull,  and  wandering  far  in  the  past. 

"  Clarencieux?"  he  muttered,  dreamily.  It  was  the  one 
loss  ever  at  his  heart,  the  one  name  ever  in  his  thoughts. 

It  struck  those  who  heard  it  with  a  pang;  they  knew  hoT^ 
endless  must  be  this  longing,  how  endless  this  loss. 

Lulli  stooped  over  him,  his  voice  very  broken. 


292  CHAOT30S. 

"  Monseigneur,  do  you  know  me?'* 

Ohandos  looked  at  him  dreamily,  blindly.  His  head  fe| 
back  with  a  sigh  of  weariness. 

*'  No,  no;  if  you  had  been  merciful,  you  would  have  let  me 
die/' 

The  words  told  his  listeners  more  mournfully,  more  utterly, 
than  any  others  could  have  done,  how  bitter  to  him  had  be- 
come the  burden  of  the  life  once  so  rich  and  gracious.  Beatrix 
Lennox,  albeit  a  woman  vrho  had  known  the  world  in  phases 
that  harden  and  chill  and  fill  with  an  ironic  mockery  for  most 
emotions  those  v.dio  do  so  know  it,  looked  on  at  him,  where  he 
Jay,  with  eyes  of  pathetic  pain,  dim  and  aching  with  unshed 
tears.  She  had  seen  him  but  so  late  in  all  of  the  glory  of  his 
kingly  manhood,  of  his  unshadowed  youth!  She  thought,  in 
that  strange  blending  of  assimilation  and  of  incongruity  which 
not  seldom  accompanies  hours  of  profound  suffering,  of  the 
old  words  of  the  Romaunt  de  Duguesclin — 

"  N'a  filairesse  en  France  qui  sache  fil  filer 
Qui  me  gagnait  aingoisma  finance  a  filer." 

*'  There  is  not  the  woman  living,''  she  thought,  "  who  could 
look  on  him  now  and  not  give  her  all  to  gain  him  ransom 
from  his  misery,  if  she  could." 

Lulli,  his  voice  broken  with  the  weeping  that  shook  him 
like  a  young  child,  stooped  over  him  in  the  same  entreaty, 
passionately  praying  for  his  recognition. 

"  Monseigneur!  my  master,  my  friend,  my  savior!  look  at 
me;  you  know  me?" 

The  long-familiar  tones  reached  the  brain,  dulled  by  cold 
and  want  of  food.  Chandos  raised  himself  and  looked  at 
him,  vacantly  yet  wonderingly,  but  with  a  half  smile  that 
passed  over  his  face  a  moment  to  fade  the  next.  "  Is  it 
your"  he  said,  faintly.  "Where  am  I?  What  has  hap- 
pened?" 

Lulli  could  not  answer  him:  the  musician  had  been  strong 
to  save  him  while  danger  nerved  and  emergency  compelled 
him;  but  now  the  reaction  told  on  him,  his  old  weakness  re- 
turned, he  wept,  trembling  sorely  like  a  woman.  The  affec- 
tions and  the  feebleness  of  his  nature  were  both  very  feminine; 
and  it  was  an  anguish  beyond  his  strength  to  see  stretched  be- 
for  him  in  that  senseless  wretchedness  the  man  to  whom  he 
owed  all,  and  whom  he  had  last  beheld  the  idol  of  a  brilliant 
world,  the  darling  of  a  throng  of  friends,  the  caressed  sov- 
ereign of  a  limitless  homage. 

Chandos  lifted  his  e3'elids,  laden  still  with  the  sleep  thai 


CHANDOS.  293 

had  been  so  nearly  the  sleep  of  death,  and  saw  Beatrix  Len- 
nox. He  remembered  them  both  then,  and,  in  the  old  in- 
stincts of  his  marked  courtesy  to  women,  strove  to  rise.  With 
an  effort  he  staggered  to  his  feet,  and  leaned  heavily  against 
the  higb  slate  shelf  above  the  warm,  wood-piled  blazing  hearth. 
He  could  not  speak;  the  sight  of  these  two  faces  so  well 
known  in  his  past — that  past  which  seemed  severed  from  him 
as  by  the  gulf  of  a  life-time — brought  back  with  a  flood  of 
memories  on  his  slowly  waking  thoughts  what  he  had  been, 
what  he  was.  They,  looking  on  him  aud  seeing  the  ruin  a 
few  months  had  wrought,  did  not  know  how  vast,  how  terrible 
the  change  was  in  him  more  utterly  than  he  himself. 

His  eyes  closed  involuntarily  with  a  shudder.  He  had 
buried  his  life  in  the  dens  of  the  populous  city  to  escape  all 
sight  of  those  once  familiar  to  and  with  him.  That  any  of 
those  should  meet  him  now  was  torture  almost  unbearable  to 
the  pride  which  survived  in  him  above  all  that  bad  sought  to 
shame  and  stay  it. 

"  How  do  I  come  here?"  he  said,  feebly,  while  his  gaze 
wandered  toward  them  with  the  pathetic  glance  of  a  man  par- 
alyzed, whose  eyes  alone  can  speak. 

"  The  cold  had  struck  you,  and  you  had  fallen,"  answered 
Beatrix  Lennox,  in  a  voice  that  fell  on  him  like  soothing 
music.  "  My  carriage  was  near;  we  brought  you  to  Monsieur 
Lulii's  room.  You  are  weak  still;  the  night  was  so  bitter. 
Wait  and  rest  before  you  speak. '* 

She  restrained  the  tears  that  choked  her  utterance;  for, 
with  the  tact  that  nature  gave  her,  she  divined  how  terrible 
must  be  to  him  the  knowledge  that  they  had  found  him  in  his 
destitution  and  his  suffering — they,  who  had  been  the  compan- 
ions of  his  glittering  prosperity,  the  one  the  recipient  of  his 
widest  charity,  the  other  the  guest  of  his  gayest  hours.  She 
sought  to  hide  her  own  knowledge  of  it  as  she  could. 

Lilli,  the  impressionable,  transparent,  child-like  Southern, 
could  exercise  no  such  self-restraint;  he  knelt  at  Chandos's 
feet,  his  head  bowed  in  his  hands,  his  heart  half  broken. 

"  Oh,  monseigneur,"  he  murmured,  passionately,  piteously, 
"  how  have  I  searched  for  you!  how  have  I  grieved  for  you! 
I  sought  you  night  and  day — sought  you  living  or  dead.  Could 
you  not  have  trusted  me  ?  Could  you  not  have  let  me  go  out 
with  you  to  your  exile?" 

Chandos  looked  down  on  him,  and  a  sigh,  quivering  as  a 
sob,  broke  from  him  unconsciously. 

"Forgive  me,  LuUi,"  he  said,  gently;  "I  was  selfish;  I 
forgot  you;  I  forgot  you  would  be  faithful." 


294  '  CHANDOS. 

"  You  never  forgot!"  cried  the  musician,  lifting  his  head 
eagerly,  while  he  flung  back  the  silky  masses  of  his  dark  hair 
oft'  his  eyes.  "  You  never  forgot  me;  you  only  forgot  your- 
self! You  remembered  my  needs,  you  remembered  my  help- 
lessness, you  remembered  to  save  me  and  serve  me  to  the  last: 
all  you  forgot  was  how  I  loved  you!'' 

Chandos  stretched  out  his  hand  to  him  with  his  old  gesture; 
he  could  not  answer,  the  Provencal's  fidelity  moved  him  too 
deeply,  stirred  him  too  bitterly,  in  its  contrast  with  the  aban- 
donment of  well-nigh  every  other. 

Beatrix  Lennox  drew  nearer,  and  laid  her  hand  softly  on  his 
gjrm. 

"  You  were  very  near  death  an  hour  ago.  Rest  now,  and 
take  what  I  bring  you." 

AVith  the  skill  and  speed  of  her  sex — though  some  there 
were  who  said  the  Jionne  had  left  far  behind  in  other  years  the 
softness  of  her  sex — she  brought  him  with  her  own  hands 
some  delicate  food  and  some  warm  and  fragrant  coffee,  stand- 
ing there  in  her  masquerade-dress  all  glittering  with  Venetian 
gems  and  Venetian  grace,  with  the  ruddy  wood-fire  light  upon 
her,  as  she  had  stood  in  the  driving  down-pour  of  the  snow- 
storm. The  hand  that  held  him  the  food  so  tenderly  had  but 
just  laid  aside  the  black  coquette  Venetian  mask  of  her  opera- 
ball;  but  01  a  surety  the  ministration  was  not  less  gentle,  the 
heart  that  i)rompted  it  not  less  full  of  divine  charity,  than  if 
it  had  just  cast  aside  the  gray  serge  of  a  religious  recluse. 

It  was  the  first  food  for  months  from  which  he  had  not 
turned  in  loathing;  he  took  it  with  a  gratitude  that,  though 
his  eyes  alone  spoke,  sunk  into  her  memory  forever.  She  saw 
what  Lulli  did  not  see,  that  it  was  the  first  he  had  taken  for 
many  hours,  and  that  long  fasting  had  done  its  work  on  him 
not  less  surely  than  the  winter  night. 

"  Can  he  want  bread?"  she  thought,  with  a  quiver  of  hor- 
ror. Heartless  though  the  world  called  her,  this  reine  gail- 
larde  of  a  lawless  court,  she  would  have  gone  and  sold  her 
jewels  and  her  cashmeres  to  bring  him  gold,  had  she  not 
known  by  instinct  that,  though  he  might  die  of  hunger,  he 
would  never  take  an  alms. 

"  I  owe  you  a  great  debt,  Mrs.  Lennox,"  he  said,  simply, 
as  his  eyes  rested  on  her,  all  the  light  dead  in  them,  a  heavy 
languor  weighing  down  their  lids,  and  haggard  darkness  cir- 
cling them,  but  with  their  weariness  a  look  of  infinite  thank- 
fulness to  her  and  to  the  one  man  who  alone  had  never  forsaken 
and  reviled  his  memory. 

"You  owe  me  none."     The  words  were  very  low,  as  she 


CHANDOS.  ^95 

stood  swaying  to  and  fro  the  gold  strings  of  her  Venetian  mask. 
"  Chandos,  I  owed  you  some  time  ago  a  far  greater  one." 
"  Owed  me?" 

His  senses  and  his  memory  were  still  dim;  warmth,  and  with 
warmth,  life  were  fast  flowing  back  into  his  veins,  but  he  felt 
as  one  in  a  dream;  the  faces  he  looked  on  were  so  familiar, 
the  place  was  so  strange,  he  could  not  disentangle  fact  from 
fantasy. 

"  Yes!" 

She  came  closer  toward  him,  standing  there  in  the  reflection 
of  the  blazing  wood,  with  the  scarlet  and  black  folds  of  her 
masquerade-dress  sweeping  downward  in  the  glow,  and  her 
haugiity,  handsome  face  turned  to  him  with  an  inexplicable 
sweetness  and  tenderness  tremulous  upon  it.  The  thought 
woke  in  him  vaguely,  even  in  that  moment.  Had  this  woman 
loved  him?     Slie,  swift  to  read  unspoken  thoughts,  guessed  it. 

"  Do  not  think  that,"  she  said,  with  a  smile  of  infinite  sad- 
ness. ''  I  never  loved  you;  it  is  very  long  since  my  heart 
beat.  But  I  would  serve  you  anyhow^ — anywhere — if  1  could. 
Do  you  remember  being  with  me  at  an  opera-supper  at  the 
Maison  Doree,  years  and  years  ago?  No!  how  siiould  you? 
It  was  only  memorable  to  me.  Some  German  prince  gave  the 
supper — who  I  forget  now;  but  there  were  women  present 
with  whom  even  I  abhorred  association.  The  jests  were  very 
free,  the  license  very  unchecked,  and  I — I  had  forfeited  the 
right  to  resent.  You  also  noticed  it — you  alone  pitied  me; 
you  went  and  spoke  in  a  whisper  to  the  prince.  He  laughed 
aloud.  '  Tiie  Lennox,  who  is  she  to — '  You  silenced  him. 
'  She  was  at  least  the  daughter  of  a  gallant  gentleman;  that 
should  not  be  forgotten.'  Then  you  came  to  me  with  your 
gentle  courtesy,  and  offered  to  take  me  to  my  carriage.  Ah! 
I  was  wrong  to  say  I  never  loved  you,  I  loved  you  tlten  !  I 
never  forgot  it — I  never  shall." 

Chandos  looked  at  her  with  a  great  gratitude,  and  yet  a  pain 
well-nigh  as  great;  tenderness  shown  him  subdued  and  touched 
him  as  it  subdues  and  touches  a  woman. 

"  God  knows  it  was  trifle  enough.  If  others  remembered 
as  you  do — " 

He  paused;  no  words  ever  escaped  him  that  could  sound 
like  a  lament  for  the  ingratitude  that  had  forsaken  him  on 
every  siie. 

"Ah,"  she  said,  passionately,  "  it  was  no  trifle  to  me.  If 
ever  I  can  repay  it — if  it  be  twenty  years  hence — I  will,  let 
the  payment  cost  what  it  may." 

The  promise  was  very  hurried  and  broken  in  its  utterance 


296  CHAKDOS. 

for  the  most  fluent  and  most  eloquent  woman  of  her  time;  she 
took  her  hands  in  his,  and  bent  over  them, 

"  If  you  could  let  me  serve  you!"  she  murmured,  as  softly 
as  his  mother  could  have  breathed  him  her  farewell;  then, 
with  a  long,  loving  gaze,  she  left  him,  the  black  and  scarlet 
lines  of  her  draperies  lost  in  the  gloom  of  the  fire-shadows. 
She  could  have  staye;!  with  him,  stayed  with  him  willingly,  to 
aid,  to  tend  on,  to  assist  him  with  every  ministry  that  love 
wiih  which  no  touch  of  passion  "blended  could  give;  but  she 
knew  him  to  be  very  proud;  she  saw  that  pride  was  not  dead, 
but.  lived  in  passionate  pain  beneath  calamity;  she  felt  that 
the  fewer  eyes  there  were  upon  him  now,  the  better  could  he 
bear  the  knowledge  that  they  had  found  him,  a  homeless  wan- 
derer, dying  in  the  streets  of  Paris.  So,  true  to  her  unselfish 
instinct,  and  guided  by  a  tenderness  higher  than  compassion, 
she  left  him — she  whom  the  world  called  an  adventuress, 
without  pity  and  without  conscience. 

As  she  passed  from  the  chamber,  he  sunk  down  wearily  and 
faintly,  his  head  bowed  on  his  breast,  his  limbs  stretched  out 
in  racking  misery  from  cold  and  stiffness  in  the  heat  of  the 
leaping  tianies.  He,  who  in  his  superb  completeness  of 
strength  and  of  health  had  never  known  what  the  illness  of  ii 
day  was,  suffered  now  every  ill  of  mind  and  body — suffered 
almost  more  in  this  moment,  when  the  reviving  warmth 
and  the  stimulant  of  the  choicer  food  gave  him  the  power 
of  vivid  consciousness,  than  he  had  done  in  the  stupor  of 
his  opiimi-drugged  senses.  Yet  no  word,  scarcely  any  sign, 
escaped  him  of  what  he  suffered;  there  was  too  proud  au 
instinct  in  him  still.  Lulli  watched  him  silently;  the  dog 
nestled  close  in  the  light  of  the  hearth.  For  many  moments 
there  was  not  a  sound  in  the  chamber;  sheer  physical  aching 
pain  wore  Chandos  down,  seeming  to  load  him  with  the  weight 
of  iron  chains,  to  burn  him  with  the  scorch  of  fire.  He 
wished — he  wished  to  God — that  they  had  left  him  in  that 
dreamless  slumber  upon  the  snow  to  die,  with  no  more  knowl- 
edge of  the  life  he  quitted  than  the  frozen  stag  that  stretches 
out  its  still'ened  limbs  upon  some  desolate  moor-side. 

(gradually,  slowly,  bodily  exhaustion  conquered;  the  pangs 
that  racked  his  frame  were  soothed  to  comparative  peace  by 
the  after-action  of  the  opiates  he  had  so  long  taken;  the 
warmth  of  the  hearth  lulled  him  to  rest;  his  eyes  closed,  his 
breathing  grew  gentler  and  more  even;  he  stretched  himself 
out  with  a  v;eary  sigh,  as  he  had  done  in  the  darkness  of  tho 
streets,  and  he  slept  at  last  as  he  had  never  slept  since  the 
night  he  learned  the  story  of  his  ruin — slept  for  hour  on  hour, 


CHANDOS.  297 

with,  scarce  a  breath  tliat  stirred  the  stillness  of  his  repose  or 
could  be  heard  upon  the  silence.  That  sleep  saved  him  from 
the  fate  which  the  girl  in  the  gaming-den  had  foreseen  for  him 
if  he  lived. 

When  he  awoke,  the  sun  was  high  in  the  western  skies;  it 
was  far  after  noon.  LuUi  sat  beside  him,  watchmg  with  a 
patience  no  length  of  vigil  could  exhaust;  the  dog  lay  asleep; 
the  ruddy  glow  of  the  great  fire  on  the  hearth  was  dyitig  down, 
though  its  intense  heat  still  filled  the  chamber.  His  eyes,  as 
they  unclosed,  met  Lulli's  resting  on  him  with  that  unwearied 
spaniel  look  which  had  scarce  ever  relaxed  its  watch  over  that 
repose  which  so  resembled  death. 

"Is  it  you,  Guido?'^  he  asked,  faintly.  "Ah,  yes,  I  re- 
member. And  you  have  been  waiting  by  me  there  so  many 
hours!" 

The  Frovengal  strove  to  smile,  though  the  tears  stood 
thick  in  his  eyes. 

"  Monseigneur,  I  would  never  weary  of  that.  ** 

"  I  know.     There  are  few  like  you. " 

*'  Monseigneur,  if  all  those  whom  you  once  served  were  like 
me  there  would  be  many  throngs.'' 

Chandos  answered  nothing:  he  raised  himself  on  his  left 
arm,  and  lay  on  the  hearth,  gazing  at  the  flicker  of  the  crim- 
son flame,  at  the  fall  of  the  gray  noiseless  ash. 

The  deadliest  pang  to  Richard  Plantagenet,  in  all  the  bit- 
terness of  his  discrowned  fortunes,  was  when  his  hound,  who 
loved  him,  who  caressed  him,  who  had  been  fed  from  his 
hand  and  had  slept  by  his  pillow,  went  from  him  to  fawn  on 
Bolingbroke.  "  //  vons  siiivra,  il  m' eloigner  a,"  said  the  for- 
saken king — a  whole  history  of  infidelity  in  the  brief  pathetic 
words.  The  deadliest  pang  of  his  lost  royalties  to  Chandos 
lay  in  the  abandonment  of  all,  save  this  poor  cripple,  whom 
he  had  loved  and  saved,  and  who  had  caressed  him  in  the 
days  of  his  purple  and  his  power. 

"  You  can  tell  me,''  he  said,  suddenly — his  voice  was  very 
hushed,  and  came  with  effort  through  his  lips — "  what  is  the 
fate  of— of— " 

His  lips  could  not  phrase,  but  his  listener  divined,  the  word. 

"  Clarencieux?"  asked  Lulli. 

He  bent  his  head. 

The  musician  looked  at  him  eagerly. 

"  Did  you  not  know?  Monsiegneur  d'Orvdle  has  bought 
the  whole." 

Chandos  looked  up,  a  flush  of  breathless  gratitude,  of  in* 


298  CHAN-DOS. 

credulous  relief,  banishing  for  the  moment  all  the  broken, 
aged,  colorless  pain  from  his  face. 

"  Is  it  true?  Philippe  d'Orvale?"  he  panted,  with  a  thirsty 
anguish  that  told  how  more  at  his  heart  than  any  other  thing 
had  lam  the  weight  of  his  home's  loss. 

"  Would  I  cheat  you?  True  as  that  we  live.  He  forced 
them  to  surrender  it  to  him  —  bought  it  untouched,  nn« 
despoiled.*' 

*' Thank  God!" 

He  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  and  for  the  only  time 
in  all  his  adversity,  save  the  moment  when  old  Harold  Gelart 
had  spoken  under  the  elms  of  the  western  terrace,  great 
storm-drops  forced  themselves  through  his  closed  lids  and  his 
clinched  fingers,  and  fell  one  by  one,  like  the  rain  before  a 
tempest. 

Far  more  to  him  than  any  mercy  to  himself  was  the  mercy 
which  had  saved  Clarencieux  from  sacrilege  and  barter  and 
destruction. 

"  Monseigneur  d'Orvdle  has  it,"  pursued  the  swift  sweefc 
voice  of  the  Proven9al.  **  Not  a  tree  will  be  touched,  not  a 
thing  be  displaced.  He  sent  for  me,  and  bade  me  live  there; 
but  I  could  not;  it  would  have  broken  my  heart.  He  has 
sought  for  you  everywhere;  he  lias  longed  to  find  you;  he  would 
have  you  return  to  it  as  though  it  were  your  own  still." 

Chandos  sliivered  where  he  sat. 

'^  I !    I  am  dead  to  it  forever.*' 

He  could  not  have  borne  to  look  upon  the  purple  distance 
of  its  woods,  he  could  not  have  borne  to  stand  beside  the  far- 
off  course  of  the  mere  river  that  flowed  toward  it — he  who  had 
forfeited  his  birthright. 

Lulli  was  silent;  his  eyes  watched  ever,  with  a  dog-like  love, 
the  form  of  Chandos,  where  he  lay  at  length  in  the  dying  glow 
of  the  flames,  his  face  hidden,  his  frame  shaken  now  and  then 
with  an  irrepressible  shudder.  An  unutterable  thanksgiving 
was  in  his  heart  for  the  fate  which  had  spared  his  home  and 
his  lands  from  the  shame  and  the  ruin  of  dissolution;  yet 
the  knowledge  that  another  dwelt  there,  that  another  had 
bought  his  heritage  forever,  brought  in  him,  as  it  had  never 
come  before,  the  full  realization  of  his  own  external  exile. 

He  raised  his  bead  after  many  moments,  and  strove  to 
steady  his  voice. 

"  Thank  him  from  me;  he  will  know  Iwio  I  thank  him.  I 
used  to  feel  how  true,  how  generous,  his  heart  was,  how  noble 
a  friend  he  would  ever  be.  Tell  him  he  is  merciful  beyond 
men's  mercy — '* 


CHANDOS.  299 

"  Tou  Vfill  tell  him?"  asked  Lulli,  softly;  "  you  will  see 
him?    He  loves  you  so  well.'' 

Ohandos  gave  an  irrepressible  gesture  of  pain. 

*'Not  yet;  not  yet/'  lie  said,  hurriedly.  "I  doubt  if 
ever — " 

The  words  were  unfinished;  in  his  own  soul  he  felt  as 
though  never  could  he  force  himself  to  look  on  the  friends  and 
companions  of  that  lost  life  which  seemed  to  lie  so  far  behind 
him  in  a  limitless  distance,  dead  and  past  forever.  Xor  in 
himself  did  he  think  that  he  would  long  live — long  bear  this 
burden  of  hopeless  wretchedness — long  endure  this  existence 
which  was  unceasingly  upon  the  verge  of  madness  or  of  death. 

What  had  he  now?  The  food  that  he  eat  here  might  be 
the  last  ever  to  pass  his  lips.  He  had  not  a  farthing  where- 
with to  buy  bread  even  for  his  dog. 

Lulli  looked  at  him  wistfully,  and  stooped  forward  nearer, 
a  kindling  light  on  his  face. 

"  Monseigneur,  hearme!"  he  said,  very  low,  with  a  fervent, 
touching  entreaty  in  his  whispered  Southern  tongue.  *'  When 
I  was  dying,  you  saved  me;  when  I  was  in  beggary,  you  gave 
me  food  and  shelter;  when  I  was  poor  and  friendless  and 
alone,  you  were  the  world  to  me.  You  found  me  in  misery, 
and  pitied  me;  and  for  the  art  that  is  my  life  and  my  soul 
you  gained  me  hearing  and  you  gave  me  fame.  Through  you 
I  am  no  more  poor;  they  talk  of  me;  my  '  Ariadne  '  has  been 
heard  through  all  the  width  of  Europe,  and  they  have  paid 
her  beauty  with  their  gold,  though  thaf  was  never  my  thought 
with  her.  Listen!  Pay  my  debt  to  you  I  never  can;  I  love 
to  owe  it  and  to  cherish  it.  But  in  some  little  sense  I  may 
serve  you;  in  some  degree  you  can  make  me  happy  by  letting 
me  ask  you  to  remember  it.  Stay  with  me;  let  me  toil  for 
you,  labor  for  you,  wait  on  you,  gather  the  gold  they  offer 
rue  for  you.  It  will  be  such  joy  to  me!  Without  the  sound 
of  your  voice,  I  am  like  a  blind  man  lost  in  this  wide  world; 
if  you  will  only  wait  with  me,  you  can  give  me  back  strength, 
power,  ambition,  everything,  and  I  shall  love  the  coins  that  I 
hate  now,  if  you  will  let  me  glean  them  all  for  you,  let  me  do 
for  you  in  some  little  kind  all  that  you  did  for  me  when  I  was 
a  homeless  cripple,  dying,  with  all  the  music  that  was  in  me 
killed  and  silenced  by  my  hunger  and  my  poverty." 

His  voice  rose  in  his  impassioned  entreaty,  till  it  thrilled 
througli  the  still  chamber  like  one  of  liis  own  melodies;  he 
would  have  slaved,  have  starved,  have  killed  himself,  to  have 
saved  or  served  the  man  who  had  luul  pity  on  his  youth. 

Chaudos  heard,  and  the  words  moved  him  deeply  as  the 


300  CHANDOS^ 

words  of  the  old  yeoman  had  done.  He  never  lifted  his  head, 
but  he  stretched  out  his  right  hand  silently,  and  grasped  the 
frail,  nervous,  transparent  hand  of  the  musician  in  a  close 
clasp. 

"  What  you  wish  can  not  be,''  he  said,  huskily.  **  I  should 
be  lost  to  shame  indeed!  But  from  my  heart  I  bless  you  for 
your  fidelity — for  your  love.'' 

"  Can  not  be?  Why  not?  In  my  need  yoa  aided  me?" 
pleaded  Lulli,  his  wistful  eyes  pleading  more  fervently  than 
his  words.  He  knew  too  little  of  the  world  to  know  why,  in 
his  own  sight,  Chandos  would  have  felt  himself  shamed  beyond 
all  humiliation  had  he  listened  to  his  prayer. 

The  blood  flushed  his  listener's  forehead  with  a  pang  of  the 
old  pride  of  his  proud  race;  he  could  not  tell  this  guileless, 
generous,  devoted  creature  that  he  would  sooner  die  like  a  dog, 
die  of  famine  in  the  streets,  than  live  on  upon  the  alms  of  his 
debtor. 

*'*  It  can  not  be,"  he  said,  gently.  "  Do  not  ask  it,  Lulli. 
If  you  have  fame  and  comfort,  I  am  more  than  rewarded  by 
you." 

The  Proven9ars  face  darkened  mournfully;  the  whole  of 
many  months  had  been  passed  in  a  vain  quest  for  his  lost 
master,  in  an  unwearied,  though,  as  it  had  seemed,  hopeless 
search,  through  which  his  sole  sustaining  thought  had  been 
to  find  his  solitary  friend  and  to  repay  in  some  faint  measure 
all  the  gifts  he  owed. 

Cliandos  rose  slowly  from  where  he  leaned  upon  the  hearth; 
his  limbs  were  still  stiff  and  weak,  though  the  profound  repose 
of  long-unbroken  sleep  had  restored  him  something  of  strength, 
and  the  life-giving  warmth  in  which  he  had  rested  had  lessened 
the  pain  in  his  brow  and  eyes  and  the  oppressive  weight  on  his 
lungs. 

"  You  are  not  going?  you  will  not  leave  me?"  cried  Lulli, 
^ith  an  accent  almost  piteous.  He  had  ever  before  his 
thoughts  the  senseless  form  on  which  by  so  hazardous  a  chance 
his  search  had  led  him  in  the  snow-storm  of  the  past  night;  he 
could  not  bear  to  let  him  go  from  his  sight  to  risk  the  same 
fate  in  loneliness  and  misery  again. 

Chandos  looked  at  him  with  something  bewildered  in  his 
glance;  the  question  brought  back  on  him  the  full  sense  of  his 
own  aimless  and  hopeless  life.  Where  should  he  go?  what 
should  he  do?  In  the  desert  of  the  world  he  staod  alone;  he 
had  not  enough  to  get  him  bread. 

"  Stay  with  me!  oh,  for  pity's  sake  stay  with  me,"  pleaded 
Lulli,  passionately.     So  willingly  would  he  have  given   up 


CHAKDOS.  301 

everything  on  earth  to  be  allowed  to  starve  for  the  (Tnly  living 
creature  who  had  evci*  pitied  him. 

Chandos  gave  a  faint  sign  of  dissent;  he  knew  not  what  he 
should  do,  he  knew  not  whether  in  the  next  day  and  night  he 
might  not  perish  of  the  same  exposure  and  want  he  had  been 
now  rescued  from;  but  his  highest  instincts  were  not  dead  in 
him;  he  would  not  linger  here,  though  for  one  moment  phy- 
sical weakness  and  all  the  long  habit  of  physical  indulgence 
came  upon  him  with  a  fearful  longing  to  lie  down  and  rest 
without  effort  in  the  soothing  heat  of  the  hearth,  to  stay  in  the 
lulling  peace  and  shelter  of  the  quiet  chamber. 

Serious  illness  was  on  him,  as  well  as  the  inertia  of  fever 
and  of  languor.  For  the  moment  he  felt  it  beyond  his  strength 
to  pass  out  into  the  bleak  biting  wind,  to  face  the  homeless 
night,  to  accept  the  fate  that  drove  him  out  into  the  wilderness 
of  the  great  city,  with  none  to  give  him  rest,  with  nothing  to 
buy  him  food.  He  longed  to  turn  back,  and  lie  down  and  die 
in  the  dreamy  comfort  of  that  calming  fire-glow. 

But  he  moved  away,  only  pausing  one  moment  to  droop  hia 
head  to  Lulli's  ear  with  a  single  question  more: 
"  Tell  me,  before  I  go,  what  of  her  ?" 
The  musician  knew  that  he  meant  the  woman  he  had  loved: 
he  was  silent,  and  turned  shuddering  away. 

'*  Do  not  ask  me!  do  not  ask  me!^'  he  murmured,  passion- 
ately. 

Chandos  staggered  slightly;  he  was  very  weak. 
"  Is  she  dead?" 

"  Would  to  Heaven  she  were!''  said  Lulli,  with  a  force  that 
thrilled  for  the  moment  with  the  fierce  vengeance  of  the 
South.  The  gentle  dreamer,  who  would  have  pardoned  the 
cruelest  wrongs  done  to  himself,  could  hate  and  could  avenge 
where  those  he  loved  were  wronged. 

"  Hush !  I  have  loved  her,"  said  Chandos,  faintly.  "  What 
of  her?     I  can  bear  all  now." 

"  She  is  Lord  Clydesmore's  wife." 

The   answer   was   ground  out  between  Lulli's   teeth;    he 
loathed,  as  he  had  loathed  the  unknown  lover  of  Valeria,  the 
woman  who  had  abandoned  and  the  man  who  had  sujjplanted 
Chandos. 
Chandos  swayed  forward  as  though  about  to  fall. 
"  Oh,  God!  his  wife!" 

The  words  broke  from  him  like  a  wrung-out  cry;  in  that 
moment  he  remembered  nothing  save  the  passion  wherewith 
he  had  loved  her,  save  the  beiiuty  which  was  given  to  another. 
He  made  his  way  with  a  blind  swaying  movement  toward  the 


303  CHANDOS. 

door;  he  had  no  sense  now  except  that  he  must  be  alone — alona 
to  bear  this  crowning  bitterness  wliich  had  befallen  him. 

"  Wait! — wait!"  cried  Lulli,  imploringly.  *'  Oh,  Heaven! 
why  would  you  have  me  tell  you?  Wait!  You  will  come  back 
to  me?" 

Chandos  put  him  aside  gently,  though  he  had  no  conscious- 
ness of  what  he  did. 

''  Yes,  I  will  come  back,"  he  answered,  mechanically, 
without  the  sense  of  what  he  promised,  as  he  made  his  way  out 
once  more  into  the  bitter  winter  air. 

He  had  forgotten  all,  except  that  the  one  who  should  now 
have  lain  in  his  arms — his  wife — had  gone,  so  soon,  to  the 
love  and  the  embrace  of  his  rival! 


CHAPTER  HI. 

IN"  THE   NET  OF  THE  EETIAEIUS. 

LuLLi  looked  for  him  in  vain.  He  never  returned.  It  was 
not  that  he  broke  wittingly  his  promise;  he  never  knew  that 
he  had  made  it. 

He  dragged  his  limbs,  how  he  could  not  have  remembered, 
to  the  only  home  he  owned  now — a  home  he  htid  not  coins 
enough  on  him  to  keep  even  another  night — a  pent,  dark, 
dreary  chamber  in  one  of  the  million  houses  of  the  crowded 
streets,  with  only  one  better  thing  in  it,  that  it  was  so  high, 
so  near  the  clouds,  that  a  clear  space  of  the  winter  skies  looked 
down  on  it,  and  the  cold  serene  radiance  of  a  few  stars  could 
be  seen  from  it  above  the  jagged  peaked  roofs.  There  the 
illness  on  him  flung  him  down;  he  lay  prostrate  many  days, 
many  nights,  with  no  watcher  beside  him  save  the  dog,  ex- 
cept once  in  several  hours,  when  the  woman  of  the  house  came 
and  filled  afresh  the  flagon  of  water  that  be  drank  from 
eagerly,  and  looked  at  him  with  a  pitying  v/onder,  rather  for 
his  beauty  than  for  his  danger,  and  went  away  and  left  him; 
for  she  only  knew  him  as  a  beggared  gamester,  and  would 
have  turned  him,  half  lifeless,  wholly  senseless,  into  the 
streets,  had  it  not  been  that,  woman-hke,  she  was  moved  to 
compassion  by  the  physical  graces  that  no  ruin  could  kill  in 
him,  and  that  touched  her  to  pity  as  he  lay  unconscious  there. 
"  As  handsome  as  a  fallen  angel!"  she  would  mutter  to  her- 
Belf,  while,  though  but  an  r)ld,  bent,  savage,  avaricious  crone, 
she  would  just  touch  softly  with  her  yellow  horny  hand 
the  gold  locks  that  women  had  used  to  crown  with  roses. 
^'  An  ai'istocrat!  an  aristocrat!    Mort   de   Dieul   how   man^ 


CHANDOS.  303 

of  them  I  have  seen  die  off  like  marrained  cattle  from  their 
gaming-hells!" 

So,  just  for  the  sake  of  his  fair  hair  and  bis  beautiful  moutli, 
like  the  mouth  of  a  Greek  god,  she  tended  him  enough  to 
keep  life  in  him  like  a  flickering  flame;  for  the  rest,  he  lay 
alone  in  the  midst  of  the  peopled  city  where  he  had  once 
reigned  supreme,  dying  in  his  solitude  for  aught  that  anj 
knew  or  cared.  The  winter  stars  shone  clear  tlirough  frosty 
nights,  and  looked  in  on  him  prostrate  there,  with  his  head 
fallen  back,  and  his  eyes  without  light  or  sense,  and  his  chest 
rising  heavily  and  wearily  with  anguish  in  every  breath  the  in- 
flamed lungs  drew;  while  the  dog  watched  beside  him,  moan- 
ing now  and  again  its  piteous  wail,  or  covering  with  its  caresses 
the  clinched  hands  and  the  contracted  brow.  Winter  dawns 
broke  chill  and  gray;  winter  days  rolled  darkly  on;  winter 
nights  passed  with  riotous  storm  or  frost  so  crystal  clear, 
through  which  the  cold  moon  shone  like  a  shield  of  steel;  he 
lay  there  in  his  loneliness  as  though  in  his  grave,  forgotten, 
and  without  a  friend  in  the  midst  of  thousands  who  had 
feasted  at  his  tables,  in  the  heart  of  palaces  where  his  word 
had  been  as  law.     Yet  the  life  in  him  would  not  die. 

It  survived  through  all;  it  recovered  without  aid,  without 
succor,  without  other  comfort  than  was  given  him  by  the 
"warmth  of  the  animal's  nestling  body  and  the  cooling  draught 
of  the  icy  water.  Whilst  he  lay  there,  one  only,  besides  the 
old  brown  withered  crone  who  tended  his  wants  in  the  few 
intervals  of  her  daily  toil,  came  and  watched  him.  One  only 
of  all  those  who  had  known  him  and  been  succored  by  him 
discovered  the  wretchedness  of  that  last  retreat,  and  stood  be- 
side the  bed  where  he  was  stretched.  Hate  is  swifter  of  foot 
and  surer  of  chase  than  love,  and  will  remember  and  search, 
untiring,  when  love  has  grown  weary  and  laggard. 

One  only  came  and  mounted  the  narrow,  dark,  rickety 
stairs,  and  entered  the  room  where  there  was  no  single  thing 
of  solace  or  of  mercy  except  when  the  clear  j)ale  liglit  of  the 
stars  shone  down  from  above  the  endless  roofs;  one  only  stood 
beside  the  pallet  where  the  man  whom  all  Europe  had  caressed 
and  honored  had  no  watcher  but  a  starving  dog.  Trevenna 
stood  there  looking  on  his  work,  and  was  content  with  it. 
PhiHppe  d'Orvale  had  baffled  him  of  his  vengeance  on  the 
senseless  stones  of  Clarencieux,  but  none  could  take  from  him 
his  vengeance  on  the  living  man  whom  his  patient  hate  had 
slain  more  mercilessly  than  by  a  swift  and  single  death-stab. 

All  the  long  years  of  subtle  dissimulation,  of  carking  envf, 
of  longing  thirst  to  destroy  the  peace  and  the  brilliance  of  the 


o04  CHANDOS. 

life  he  pursued,  of  gifts  accepted  with  greed  because  they 
were  the  means  of  conquest,  but  loathed  and  cursed  and  add- 
ing by  each  one  a  stone  to  the  load  of  his  hatred — all  these 
were  over  and  over  recompensed  now,  here,  in  this  darkened, 
poverty-biired  garret  in  the  city  of  Paris,  where  his  prey,  in 
torture  and  in  famine,  lay  insensible  beneath  his  gaze. 

Of  all  the  women  who  had  listened  to  Chandos's  love-words 
and  toyed  with  the  brightness  of  his  hair,  there  was  not  one 
who  now  held  a  stoup  of  water  to  his  lips.  Of  all  the  hands 
that  he  had  filled  with  gold,  there  was  not  one  now  to  touch 
with  jDJ tying  caress  the  brow  all  bent  and  dark  with  pain.  Of 
all  the  mouths  to  which  he  had  given  food,  there  was  not  one 
now  to  murmur  a  gentle  word  over  his  misery.  Of  all  the 
throno^s  whom  he  had  bidden  beneath  his  roof,  of  all  the  lives 
he  had  made  prosperous  and  joyous,  of  all  the  friends  who  had 
laughed  with  him  through  the  long  luxuriant  summer  day  of 
his  existence,  there  was  not  one  now  who  asked  whether  he 
were  living  or  dead.  There  was  but  his  enemy  who  looked 
on  him  and  rejoiced. 

Every  unconscious  sigh  that  broke  from  him,  every  move- 
ment of  his  fevered  aching  limbs,  every  breath  drawn  through 
his  agonized  lungs,  every  contraction  that  knit  his  burning 
forehead  in  his  suffering,  every  look  of  dull  sightless  suffering 
from  the  blind  and  sleepless  eyes,  his  foe  watched,  and  was 
content. 

"  Quand  j'emiettais  men  pain  a  Toiseau  du  rivage, 
L'onde  semblait  mc  dire,  '  Espere!  aux  mauvais  jours, 
Dieu  te  rendra  ton  pain.'    Dieu  me  le  doit  toujours!" 

wrote  the  poet  Moreau,  dying  in  his  youth  of  lack  of  the  food 
dogs  rejected.  Chandos  had  thrown  his  bread  on  many  waters, 
giving  to  all  who  asked,  to  all  who  were  heavy-laden,  to  all 
who  lived  in  darkness  and  in  want.  It  was  uurecompensed 
and  owing  to  him  still.  He  needed  it  now,  but  none  repaid 
it.  There  only  remained  with  him  his  foe,  who  brought  him 
the  hyssop  and  the  aloe  when  he  died  for  a  drop  of  the  clear 
living  rivers  of  the  laud  he  had  left. 

"  Water! — water!"  he  murmured,  unceasingly,  where  he 
was  stretched  in  his  delirious  stupor.  Trevenna  poured  some 
absinthe,  and  touched  his  lips  with  it.  He  shuddered,  all 
unconscious  as  he  waa,  and  turned  with  a  heavy  gasping  sigh 
from  the  loathsome  drink,  so  bitter,  so  abiiorrent  to  the 
fever-burned,  dry  lips  that  long  to  steep  themselves  forever  in 
the  cool  flow  of  sweet,  fresh  waters.     Trevenna  smiled. 

"  Beau  seigneur!"  he  said,  softly,  to  himself,  "  2  hdvo 
drunk  bitterness  long;  it  is  your  turn  now. " 


CHANDOS.  305 

He  lay  insensible,  defenseless;  the  width  of  his  chest  was 
bare,  and  the  loud,  panting,  inflamed  beatings  of  his  heart 
could  be  seen  where  it  throbbed  like  the  passionate  aching 
heart  of  a  mured  eagle.  Trevenua  laid  his  hand  on  it,  and 
his  eye  glanced  to  a  knife  that  lay  on  the  deal  board  on  which 
his  pitcher  of  drink  was  set. 

"How  easy!"  he  thought.  "But  I  have  done  better.  I 
have  killed  him;  but  I  have  never  broken  a  law,  A  stab  there 
would  be  mercy  to  him;  he  shall  never  gel  it  from  me.*' 

Chandos's  arm  moved  where  it  hung  over  the  bed,  seeking 
instinctively,  all  dead  to  what  passed  or  what  looked  on  him 
though  he  was,  the  place  whence  he  was  used  to  take  the  cup 
of  water  which  the  woman  of  the  house  set  by  him.  For  the 
sake  of  his  beauty,  she  had  been  pitiful  in  the  last  hour,  and 
had  sliced  in  it  a  few  cuts  of  orange  to  cool  the  thirst  that  de- 
voured him.  His  hand  wandered  in  a  pathetic  uncertainty, 
seeking,  as  a  blind  mans  seeks,  the  onlj  thing  he  had  life  left 
in  him  to  long  for.  Trevenna  moved  the  table  from  his  reach, 
and  emptied  out  upon  the  floor  the  orange-water.  Had  he 
written  the  "  Purgatorio  "  and  the  "  Inferno,''  he  would  have 
invented  more  devilish  tortures  than  Dante  framed  in  the 
Caina,  Ptolomea,  and  Antenora. 

The  thirst,  parched  and  delirious  as  the  thirst  of  men  in  the 
desert,  consumed  his  victim  with  an  intolerable  torment;  his 
mouth  was  white  and  dry  as  dust,  his  forehead  red  with  the 
heated  blood,  his  eyes  wide  open  with  a  terrible,  senseless 
stare:  thrown  back  there,  with  his  bare  chest  grand  as  the 
chest  of  a  Torso,  and  the  luxuriance  of  his  hair  tangled  and 
tossed  and  lusterless,  yet  retaining  the  beauty  with  which  nat- 
ure had  created  him  deathless  to  the  last,  he  lay  like  a  young 
glaJiiator  flung  down  in  the  sand  of  the  arena  by  the  clinging 
serpentine  coils  of  the  Eetiarius.  Indistinct,  disconnected 
words  broke  now  and  then  from  his  lips,  in  the  wanderings  of 
thoughts  that  in  the  misery  of  that  thirst  stretched  far  away 
into  dim  memories  of  his  past — to  tlie  forest  freshness  of  En- 
glish brooks,  to  the  deep  still  blue  of  Austrian  lakes,  to  the 
sweet  music  of  waters  falling  through  innumerable  leaves  down 
the  steep  height  of  many-colored  stone,  of  the  grand  breadth 
of  Euphrates  rolling  beneath  its  palms,  of  the  silver-sheeted 
Danube  lying  in  the  deep  shadows  of  its  woods,  of  the  stilly 
murmur  of  winding  waters  in  the  Italian  spring-tide  leaf, 
flowing  lazily  and  softly  beneath  the  green  wild  arums,  and  the 
tawny  bedsof  osiers,  and  the  wreathing  boughs  of  Banksia 
roses,  and  the  gentle  fragrance  of  the  young  vine's  flower-buds. 
They  were  on  his  lips  ever,  in  longing,  fugitive,  broken  mciD' 


S06  CHANDOS. 

Dries — those  scenes  and  hours  of  his  past,  those  thoughts  ci 
the  earth's  fair  freshness  that  was  dead  and  lost  to  him. 

Trevenna  stood  still  and  listened  to  the  unconscious,  un- 
bidden suffering  that  longed  for  all  that  it  was  exiled  from, 
that  spoke  in  those  broken  words  of  all  the  glories  of  remem- 
bered hours,  all  the  freedom  of  the  forests  and  the  seas,  while 
life  was  wrung  and  death  imbittered  by  that  one  poor  piteous 
want — one  draught  of  the  water  that  beggars  might  drink 
from  every  brook  that  bubbled.  He  listened;  he  could  have 
listened  forever. 

He  thought  of  the  night  when  he  had  ground  the  Paris 
sweetmeats  into  the  mud  of  the  gutter,  and  registered  hia 
childish  vow;  he  had  kept  it  to  the  letter.  Happier  than  Shy- 
lock,  he  had  cut  the  piece  of  his  vengeance  from  the  living 
heart  of  his  victim,  with  none  to  stay  his  hand. 

The  gray  chilly  twilight  of  a  winter's  day  filled  the  attic; 
the  light  of  tlie  first  faint  moon-ray  glistened  on  the  bare  walls 
and  the  naked  floor;  the  noise,  the  stench,  the  noxious  reeking 
air  of  the  alley  below  could  reach  but  little  here;  only  an 
oath,  or  a  laugh  more  ghastly  than  the  oath,  pierced  the  still- 
ness of  this  chamber  in  the  roof,  while  through  its  broken 
casement  the  tide  of  the  icy  night- wind  poured  bitterly  in  on 
the  uncovered  chest,  on  the  fevered  limbs,  on  the  darkened 
aching  brow. 

There  was  no  pang  of  conscience  in  the  watcher  there — no 
memory  of  the  friendshiis  that  had  trusted,  of  the  loyalty  that 
had  saved  him — no  thought  of  his  own  fraud,  of  his  own  base- 
ness. He  only  remembered  what  this  man  had  been  in  the 
splendor  of  his  promise,  in  the  gladness  of  his  youth,  in  the 
brilliance  of  his  renown,  and  looked  at  him  lying  thus,  and 
was  content.  When  the  net  had  wound  its  coils,  and  the 
strangled  limbs  were  powerless,  and  the  strength  reeled  and 
fell  under  its  twisting,  writhing  meshes  down  into  the  sand, 
the  Ketiarius  had  no  pity,  but  he  looked  upward  to  where  the 
shouts  of  "  Euge!"  and  the  turned-down  hands  decreed  with 
him  no  mercy  to  the  vanquished,  and  he  plunged  in  again  and 
again  the  fangs  of  his  trident,  seeking  the  last  life-blood.  So 
it  was  now  with  Trevenna.  His  net  had  been  deftly  flung, 
and  had  brought  his  adversary  down,  blinded  and  paralyzed; 
but  he  would  never  have  wearied  of  stabbing  again  and  again, 
while  there  was  life  to  feel. 

He  turned  reluctantly  away:  he  could  have  lingered  there 
whilst  there  was  a  pang  to  watch,  a  sigh  to  count.  He  heard 
the  footfall  of  the  old  Auvergnat  woman  heavily  treading  over 
the  bare  boards.     She  touched  his  arm — a  hideous,  brown. 


CHANDOS".  307 

wrinkled,  shriveled  being  of  nigh  eighty  years,  with  avarice  ia 
her  black  glance,  and  a  horrible  old  age  upon  her. 

"  You  know  him?''  she  asked. 

"  I  know  a  little  of  him,"  he  answered,  indifferently.  "  You 
had  better  not  keep  him  here  longer  than  you  can  help;  he 
may  get  you  into  trouble. '' 

He  roused  her  fears  and  her  selfishness,  that  even  this 
miserable  hand  might  be  withheld  from  easing  the  suffering 
they  looked  on.     The  Auvergnat  looked  at  him  in  terror. 

"  With  the  pohce?'' 
•  Trevenna  nodded  and  shrugged  his  shoulders.      The  old 
creature,  steeped  in  Paris  vice  and  devoured  with  Paris  avarice, 
set  her  teeth  hard. 

"  By  the  Mother  of  God!  I  would  have  turned  him  in  the 
streets  days  ago  if  he  were  not  as  beautiful  as  a  marble 
Christ.*'   ■ 

Trevenna  laughed — a  loud,  coarse,  jeering  laugh. 

*'His  beauty!  You  old  crone,  what  can  that  be  to  you? 
If  you  were  twenty,  now — " 

She  turned  on  him  her  darkling  and  evil  glance. 

"  Women  are  fools  to  their  tombs.  I  can  not  hurt  him;  I 
should  see  his  face  forever." 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  If  you  wish  to  serve  him,  get  him  let  into  some  pauper 
mad-house.     It  is  the  only  thmg  you  can  do  for  him." 

She  shuddered  a  dissent. 

"  They  would  shear  all  thai  in  a  mad-house!"  she  said, 
drawing  through  her  hard  withered  hands  the  silken  fairness 
of  his  hair.  "  When  I  was  young,  I  would  have  given  my 
life  to  kiss  that  gold — when  I  was  young!" 

The  words  muttered  half  sullenly,  half  longingly,  on  her 
lips;  the  memory  made  her  touch  gently,  almost  tenderly,  the 
locks  that  lay  in  her  horny  palm.  She  felt  for  him — almost, 
in  a  way,  she  loved  him — this  battered,  evil,  savage  old  creat- 
ure of  Paris;  but  she  would  strip  the  linen  from  his  limbs  to 
thieve  and  sell,  for  all  that. 

**  Send  him  there  all  the  same,"  said  Trevenna.  *'  It  is  the 
only  place  that  will  shelter  him  now;  except  one,  to  be  sure — 
the  Morgue!" 

And  with  these  last  words  to  rankle  and  fester,  and  ripen  if 
they  should,  in  the  soul  of  the  old  beldam  who  had  all  to  lose, 
nothing  to  gain,  by  the  life  of  one  whom  she  had  robbed  of 
everything,  Trevenna  went  lightly  down  the  high  crazy  stair- 
case that  passed  through  so  many  stories  to  the  basement; 

S-£d  balL 


^8  CHANDOS. 

there  was  a  more  intensely  victorious  glance  in  his  eyes,  m 
smile  of  tenfold  success  on  his  n)cuth. 

"  My  brilliant  Chandos!  my  brilliant  Chandos!*'  he  said, 
half  aloud,  "  how  is  it  with  3'ou  now?" 

And  he  went  out  into  the  night,  leaving  the  man  who  had 
rescued  him  from  his  prison  to  perish  of  thirst,  or  of  famine, 
or  of  fever — to  die  in  the  streets  or  to  live  like  a  chained  beast 
in  a  mad-liouse — whichever  should  chance  to  be  the  fruit  and 
Lhe  end  of  his  history. 

Trevenna  never  laughed  more  merrily  at  the  vaudeville  of 
the  Bouifes,  never  eat  his  salad  with  keener  relish  at  the  Cafe 
Kiche,  never  looked  on  at  Mabille  with  more  good-tempered 
indulgence  for  the  follies  which  had  no  attraction  for  himself, 
than  he  did  that  night.  Once  he  laughed  aloud,  so  gayly,  so 
long,  that  a  friend  near  asked  what  the  jest  was.  He  laughed 
again. 

"  I  am  thinking  of  Belisarins  begging  an  obole;  and  of  Henry 
IV.  hunted  and  naked,  and  dead  of  starvation,  at  SpiresT' 

His  friend  stared,  and  thought  the  wine  was  in  his  head. 
But  it  was  not;  he  was  only  drunk  with  success. 

The  doom  of  his  prey,  however,  then  at  least,  was  not  the 
mad-house  or  the  grave.  He  rose  from  his  bed  at  length,  the 
superb  frame  with  which  nature  had  dowered  him  resisting  all 
the  stress  and  peril  that  had  sought  to  undermine  it.  He  won- 
dered wearily  why  he  rould  not  die. 

The  woman  who  had  brought  him  drink  and  tended  him  now 
and  then,  for  the  sake  of  those  lips  like  the  Sun-god's,  of  those 
limbs  like  the  Antique,  had  robbed  him  of  tlie  little  he  had 
left  while  he  lay  insensible— -of  the  diamond  links  in  his  sleeves, 
of  the  gold  buttons  in  his  shirts,  of  the  fine  cambric  of  his 
linen,  of  the  few  traces  left  to  him  of  the  old  luxuries  of  his 
usage.  She  said,  when  he  could  hear,  that  she  had  been  at 
great  cost  for  his  illness:  he  beheved  her;  he  could  not  tell 
that  her  pitcher  of  water  had  been  the  sole  thing  set  by  his 
side. 

Having  lost  what  he  had  lost,  moreover,  what  could  the  few 
things  stolen  now  be  to  him? 

Thus,  when  he  rose  at  last,  and  staggered  out  from  the 
wretched  dwelling  where  he  had  not  a  coin  left  to  keep  even 
Us  roof  above  his  head,  he  was  literally  beggared — beggared 
almost  as  utterly  as  any  unknown  corpse  that  lay  waiting 
burial  in  the  dead-house  by  the  Seine. 

Since  the  far-gone  German  da3^s  when  an  emperor  vainly 
begged  bread  at  the  monastery  he  had  endowed,  and  dragged 
him-ielf  to  a  vault  to  die  unsepulchered,  there  had  hardly  been 


CHANDOS.  309 

a  fall  more  vast,  more  sudden,  from  the  height  of  power  to  the 
depths  of  poverty. 

He  went  feebly  out  into  the  early  night,  that  by  a  chance 
was  clear,  starlit,  and  mild.  Beau  Sire  looked  up  at  him  and 
moaned;  a  piteous  hunger  gazed  out  from  the  dog's  eyes:  he 
was  famished ;  he  had  well-nigh  starved  through  all  tlie  days 
and  nights  that  he  had  kept  guard  by  his  master.  He  had 
not  a  sou  left  him  to  buy  the  animal  food. 

He  shuddered  as  he  met  the  wistful,  uncomplaining,  hungry 
eyes — he  who  had  never  beheld  pain  save  to  relieve  or  to  re- 
lease it!  He  stood  alone  in  the  busy,  rapid,  lighted,  heedless 
tide  of  life  in  a  Paris  night,  and  had  not  wherewith  to  buy  a 
crust  to  keep  the  brute  that  loved  him  from  starvation.  He 
had  thought  with  a  longing  agony  of  his  promise  to  the  dead 
man  who  had  bade  him  live  to  meet  his  fate;  the  oath  was  a 
bitter  one  to  keep. 

He  almost  reeled  through  the  first  street  that  his  steps 
turned  into;  illness  had  mortally  weakened  him,  and  his  head 
swam  with  the  booming  noise  of  the  traffic,  and  with  the  stench 
of  the  crowds.  The  retriever  followed  him  feebly:  famine  was 
telling  on  its  strength;  and,  like  its  master,  used  to  all  luxury 
and  to  all  delicacies  for  so  long,  it  was  untrained  to  want:  its 
eyes  were  growing  dim  and  ravenous. 

Chandos  felt  his  limbs  fail  him;  the  exhaustion  of  severe 
illness  was  on  him,  with  nothing  of  shelter,  of  stimulant,  of 
repose,  to  support  him  under  it.  He  sunk  down  almost  un- 
consciously on  some  stone  steps  of  the  narrow  thoroughfare  ho 
had  wandered  into,  and  drew  the  dog  to  him  with  its  fond  head 
nestled  in  his  breast;  he  could  not  bear  the  mute  appeal  of 
those  longing,  piteous  eyes.  The  crowds  swept  past  him — 
rich  and  poor,  chiefly  the  latter,  for  it  was  m  a  densely  peopled 
and  ancient  quarter,  but  all  bent  fast  on  their  own  errands. 
Two  or  three  turned  their  heads  back  over  their  shoulders  to 
look  at  him,  with  his  arm  resting  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
animal  that  pressed  so  closely  to  him;  none  did  more.  They 
v/ere  the  hurried  pleasure- seekers  and  the  toiling  laborers  of  a 
great  city;  they  could  have  no  heed  of  one  misery  amidst  so 
vast  a  canker  of  universal  want  and  greed. 

The  throngs  passed  him  like  a  throng  of  phantoms;  he 
thought,  as  he  sat  there,  of  tlie  thousand  nights  wlien  ho  had 
driven  through  Paris  with  all  the  rank,  with  all  the  brilliance, 
of  the  Court  of  8t.  Cloud  around  him,  with  no  name  mopj 
farn<)us,  with  no  presence  more  courted,  at  Tuileries  or  Fao* 
bourg,  tluift  n',3  owe. 

Now  he  must  let  his  dog  hun(?er  for  a  broken  loan 


510  CHANDOS. 

Where  he  sat,  the  lamp-lighfc  flasheil  on  the  collar  the  re* 
trieverwore — a  handsome  toy  of  silver,  with  his  arms  embossed 
upon  it — a  relic  of  his  long-lost  life.  The  collar  was  of  value; 
and  the  woman  who  had  robbed  him  of  every  other  trifle  wouJd 
have  robbed  him  even  of  that,  had  not  Beau  Sire  kept  her  off 
it  through  his  passionate  menace  of  her  with  his  mighty  fangs. 
His  hand  wandered  to  the  padlock  fastening  it:  how  many 
hours  it  recalled  to  him,  that  burnished  glittering  ornament 
where  it  gleamed  under  the  dog's  black  curls — hours  of  fresh 
«iutumn  mornings  among  the  woods  of  Clarencieux,  with  the 
whir  of  a  pheasant's  wing  through  the  reddening  gold  of  the 
leaves;  of  breezy  Scottish  days,  with  the  splash  of  the  cool 
brown  water,  and  the  flush  of  a  snow-white  swan,  and  the 
balmy  honey-smell  of  the  heather,  while  the  grouse  gave  her 
note  of  warning  to  the  thoughtless  grazing  deer;  of  glowing 
deep-hued  Eastern  sunsets,  where  the  reeds  of  the  Nile  trem- 
bled in  the  after-glow,  or  the  curling  flight  of  the  desert-hawk 
soared  upward  above  the  ruins  of  the  temples  of  Jupiter 
Ammon — hours  when  the  days  and  the  nights  were  all  too 
brief  for  the  glad  luxuriance  of  the  "  life  he  was  gifted  and 
filled  with.'' 

The  great  tears  gathered  iu  his  eyes  and  fell  down,  wrung 
slowly,  one  by  one,  upon  the  shining  metal;  then  he  unfastened 
the  collar,  and  rose  and  crossed  the  street  to  a  small  dark 
house  where  he  saw  that  things  were  pawned — a  minor,  obscure 
Mont  de  Piete.     He  entered  and  laid  the  toy  down. 

"  Take  it,"  he  said,  faintly,  yet  with  a  new,  strange  fierce- 
ness in  the  words — tiie  fierceness  that  comes  with  the  gnawing 
of  want;  "  take  it,  and  give  me  food  for  the  dog." 

The  owner  of  the  wretched  place  stared  at  him,  and  balanced 
the  collar  thoughtfully  in  his  hands,  amazed  at  the  richness 
and  the  workmanship  of  the  thing  ofl:ered  him.  He  gave  one 
glance,  suspicious,  curious,  leering;  but  the  look  soon  passed: 
he  saw  his  first  thought  of  theft  was  wrong;  he  saw,  as  the 
old  crone  had  seen,  "  an  aristocrat"  in  the  man  who  craved 
food  from  him  for  that  costly  ornament. 

"It  is  of  value — of  great  value,"  he  muttered,  in  the  sur- 
prise of  the  moment,  balancing  still  with  critical  wonder  the 
silver  links  and  phites,  and  peering  through  his  test-glass  at 
'ihe  graven  crest  and  shield. 

"  Give  me  food  for  him,  and  take  it. " 

The  words  were  very  low,  but  there  was  something  of  menace 
in  them.  The  man,  old  and,  though  avaricious,  not  dis- 
honest, for  his  trade,  glanced  half  frightened  at  their  speaker, 
a.nd,  keeping  the  collar  in  his  hand,  stooped  under  his  dirt^ 


CHAKDOS.  311 

connter,  and  drew  out  a  plate  of  his  own  supper — good  food 
enough,  though  coarse,  and  heaped  up  in  abundance.  The 
retriever  devoured  it  as  only  starvation  can  devour. 

The  pawnbroker  watched  him  with  a  half-stupid  wonder, 
then  took  three  napoleons  from  his  desk  and  pushed  them  to- 
ward Chandos. 

"  Your  silver  thing  is  worth  more  than  your  dog's  meat. 
Take  those." 

The  collar  was  worth  thirty,  as  he  knew  well;  he  voluntarily 
gave  three.  He  thought  himself  stupendously  honest:  so  he 
was,  as  the  world  goes. 

A  deep  flush  came  for  the  moment  into  Chandos's  face;  he 
drew  back  with  an  involuntary  gesture  of  repulsion.  Want 
had  not  killed  in  him  yet  the  patrician  impulses  of  his  blood; 
then,  as  the  color  faded,  leaving  him  deadly  pale,  he  stretched 
out  his  hand  and  took  it.  It  would  keep  life  in  him  for  an- 
other week. 

"  I  thank  you,"  he  said,  simply,  as  he  bowed  with  his  old 
courtly  grace  to  the  man  who  with  wide-open  eyes  watched 
him  with  a  fascinated  amaze. 

"Mon  Dieul"  murmured  the  pawnbroker,  as  he  turned  to 
leave  the  place- — "  mon  Dieu!  how  strange  a  man!  He  wants 
food  for  a  dog,  and  he  bows  like  a  king.  Well,  I  gave  him 
three,  I  gave  him  three;  I  almost  wish  I  had  given  him  more.^' 

Still,  even  as  it  was,  he  felt  by  that  voluntary  gift  of  three 
he  had  been  virtuous  enough  to  deserve  the  Prix  de  Mont- 
holon.  There  are  many  in  higher  trades  than  his  who  con- 
sider that  to  abstain  for  a  little  ^^art  from  all  the  cheating  they 
have  it  in  their  power  to  do,  is  to  attain  a  high  degree  of  social 
and  commercial  honesty. 

Chandos,  with  the  retriever  leaping  and  fawning  on  him  in 
gratitude  and  pleasure,  turned  to  ^^ass  from  the  place.  In  tlie 
entrance  stood  Trevenva. 

Well  clothed  in  dark  warm  seal-skins  that  hung  lightly  on 
him,  with  a  Russia-leather  case  in  his  hand,  from  which  he 
had  just  paused  to  take  a  cigar,  with  his  ruddy  color  brighter, 
his  white  teeth  whiter,  and  his  keen,  frank  eyes  bluer  in  the 
winter  air  and  glancing  gas-light,  he  stood  in  an  easy  comfort, 
in  a  traveler's  carelessness;  and  on  his  mouth  was  a  lurking 
'smile — a  smile  of  irrepressible  amusement,  of  ironic  triumph. 
He  had  watched  Chandos  many  a  time  in  the  gambling-hell, 
in  the  midnight  streets,  in  the  opium- drunkenness,  before  he 
had  stood  and  looked  at  him  where  he  hiy  insensible  on  what 
seemed  Ills  death-bed.  lie  had  seldom  lost  sight  of  him;  ho 
bad  been  the  only  one  who  remembered  him;  for  hate  is  more 


312  CHAJSTDOS. 

enduring  than  any  love.  But  now  only  for  the  first  time 
Chandos  knew  that  his  gaze  was  on  him — now  when  the  hazard 
of  accident  had  made  his  bitterest  enemy  pause  at  the  door  of 
the  pawnshop  and  look  ou  at  the  barter  of  the  silver  toy. 

And  not  in  the  first  iustant  when  Chandos  turned  and  saw 
him  could  he  wholly  hide  the  caustic  mockery,  the  victorious 
success,  with  which  he  had  watched  this  last  depth  of  hopeless 
misery  into  which  the  man  he  had  pursued  had  fallen;  not  in 
that  moment  of  sujjreme  domination  over  his  fallen  friend 
could  he  resist  the  impulse  that  beset  the  single  weakness  lurk- 
ing in  his  bright,  bold  nature — the  weakness  of  an  insatiable 
and  woman-like  avidity  of  hate. 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  with  his  old  ready,  pleasant 
smile;  the  palm  was  filled  with  some  ten  or  dozen  sovereigns 
and  a  few  crisp  bank-notes  just  won  at  the  whist-tables  of  the 
Jockey  Club, 

"  Tres  cher!  when  we  last  met,  you  used  me  rather  roughly 
because  I  offended  you  with  a  bit  of  common  sense;  the  direst 
insult  to  you  men  of  genius.  But  let  by-gones  be  by-gones. 
Take  what  you  want,  Chandos;  you  did  the  same  for  me  once. 
Take  'em  all:  do,  now.  You  won't  believe  how,  from  my 
Boul,  I  pity  you.  Pawned  the  dog's  collar — oh,  the  deuce! 
Is  it  so  bad  as  that?  You  look  as  if  you  wanted  food  yourself: 
why  didn't  you  write  to  me?  I'm  a  poor  man,  as  you  know; 
but  still  a  five-pound  note — " 

He  knew  so  well  how  to  pierce  with  the  cruelest  strokes  the 
most  sensitive  nerves  of  the  nature  he  bad  studied  so  long  and 
so  minutely.  The  words  might  have  passed  on  a  stranger's 
ear  as  kindly  meant,  though  coarsely  phrased ;  he  knew  how 
more  bitter  than  all  taunts,  more  unbearable  than  all  outrage, 
would  they  be  to  the  man  who  stood  before  him. 

He  was  not  prepared  for  their  effect. 

Chandos  looked  at  him  a  moment  in  silence,  then  dashed 
his  hand  down  with  his  own  clinched  fist  in  a  sudden  blow  that 
scattered  in  the  mud  the  coins  and  notes. 

"  Take  carel  or  you  shall  have  the  same  on  your  gibing 
lips.*' 

The  menace  was  low-breathed,  but  it  thrilled  with  a  fierce 
intensity  of  suppressed  passion.  Trevenna  had  not  calculated 
or  remembered  the  change  that  wretchedness  and  desperation 
work  in  the  gentlest  natures;  he  had  never  thought  how  the 
softest  and  most  phant  temper,  goaded  by  indignity  and 
altered  by  circumstance,  will  turn  at  last  ferocious  like  a 
wild  boar  at  bay. 

He  stooped,  amazed  and  for  the  instant  speechless^  and 


CHANDOS.  313 

picked  up  the  scattered  money  from  the  doorstep  and  the 
street  (Treveana  never  wasted  anything;  it  was  one  of  the 
secrets  of  his  success);  then  he  looked  up  with  the  insolence 
of  superiority,  the  coarseness  of  triumph,  that  he  could  no 
more  have  spared  to  the  man  before  him  than  the  hound  will 
spare  the  stag  he  has  pulled  down  the  gripe  of  his  fangs,  the 
wrench  of  his  jaws. 

"  On  my  honor,  monseigneur,  we  can't  stand  that  style 
now,  you  know.  We  2Dut  up  with  your  pride  when  you  were 
the  Lord  of  Clarencieux,  but  Fll  be  hanged  if  men  will  let  you 
come  it  over  them  now.  You've  lost  your  head,  that's  what 
it  is,  with  gaming,  and  drinking,  and  going  to  the  bad.  I'm 
deuced  sorry  for  you,  on  my  word  I  am;  awful  break-down,  I 
know,  and  a  good  deal  of  excuse:  still,  when  a  man  would 
take  pity  on  you — " 

Chandos's  hand  fell  with  a  swaying  weight  upon  his  shoulder 
and  forced  him  back  off  the  step,  off  the  stones.  Under  the 
goad  of  his  foe's  insults,  under  the  taunting  pity  of  the  man 
he  had  saved  and  enriched,  all  the  weakness  of  illness,  all  the 
dizziness  of  exhaustion,  seemed  to  leave  him;  he  felt  as  though 
the  force  of  lions  flowed  back  into  his  veins. 

''  Come  out — into  some  lonely  place,"  he  muttered  in  Tre- 
venna's  ear.  "  Come  quietly,  or  I  shall  find  strength  to  kill 
you  still." 

Trevenna  was  a  courageous  man,  but  also  he  was  a  sagacious 
one;  he  knew  what  the  gripe  of  the  hand  that  held  him,  what 
the  gleam  of  the  eyes  that  stared  into  his,  foreboded.  He 
turned  of  his  own  accord  passively  down  a  solitary,  gloomy, 
unlighted  court  of  a  dreary  uninhabited  fifteenth-century 
hotel,  not  far  from  the  Tourelle  de  la  Reine  Isabeau,  in  the 
ancient  Rue  du  Temple,  where  the  darling  of  Paris  was  struck 
down  by  the  assassins  of  his  foe  of  Burgundy. 

Chandos  had  never  released  his  grasp  upon  his  shoulder;  he 
forced  him  slowly  on  and  backward  into  the  darkness  of  the 
stone-pa veel  court.  Men  turned  and  looked  at  him;  he  had  no 
sense  of  them;  he  only  saw  John  Treveuna's  face.  Once 
alone  there,  in  that  gaunt  black  silence,  he  released  him  and 
shook  him  olf. 

"  Now  tell  me  why  you  hate  mc!" 

The  words  were  distinctly  uttered,  and  were  not  loud;  yet 
for  the  moment  of  their  utterance,  as  he  had  done  once  before, 
Trevenna  felt  very  near  his  death.  But  he  was  a  bold  man; 
he  did  not  quail;  he  laughed  audaciously. 

"Why  do  I  hcte  you?  What  a  question!  In  the  firsi 
place,  you  can't  know  I  do. " 


314  CHANDOS. 

Chandos  took  a  step  nearer  to  him;  his  eyes  were  black,  his 
lips  were  livid. 

*'  No  lies!  Why  do  you  triumph  in,  my  ruin?  How  have  I 
ever  wronged  you?" 

Trevenna  laughed  again;  his  temper  was  up  for  once,  his 
savage  hatred  had  got  the  better  of  him,  his  caution  was  for- 
gotten in  the  irresistible  delight  of  flinging  o2  the  disguise  he 
had  worn  so  long,  and  taunting  and  cursing  his  fallen  antag- 
onist openly  while  he  was  powerless;  even  as  yonder,  under 
the  House  of  the  Image  of  Our  Lady,  the  boar  of  Burgundy 
had  commanded  the  "  coup  de  massue"  to  the  fair  lifeless 
body  that  his  brute  envy  had  slaughtered  in  its  youth. 

"  I  have  no  title  to  aspire; 
Yet  if  you  sink  I  seem  the  higher," 

he  chanted,  with  a  malicious  humor.  "  That  couplet  is  true 
to  the  core.  Triumph?  I  don't  triumph.  I  only  offer  to 
lend  you  a  five-pound  note;  aud  you  look  deucedly  as  if  you 
wanted  it.  Of  course  there's  sometliing  droll  in  such  a  falJ 
as  yours.  I  can't  help  that.  To  think  of  all  you  used  to  be 
and  all  you  are!  The  see-saw  of  Fortune  was  never  half  so 
strikingly  illustrated  since  the  days  of  Croesus." 

There  was  very  little  light  where  they  stood,  none  save  such 
as  the  winter  moon  shed;  but  there  was  enough  for  him  to 
see  the  face  above  him,  and  the  words  stopped  abruptly  even 
on  his  fearless  lips. 

He  knew  that  for  far  less  provocation  than  this  blood  had 
been  shed  a  million  times  since  the  days  of  Cain. 

*'  Answer  me,"  said  Chandos — and  there  was  a  menace  in 
the  patient  words  more  deadly  than  lies  in  passion — "  answer 
me.      WJiy  do  you  hate  me  as  devils  hate?" 

"  Can't  say  how  devils  hate!  Don't  believe  in  'em,"  said 
Trevenna,  flippantly.  His  audacious  and  insolent  temper  was 
dared  and  roused ;  though  he  had  died  for  it,  he  would  not 
have  abandoned  his  victory.  "  No  more  do  you.  They  all 
say  now  '  Lucrece  '  is  a  deistical  work;  a  season  later,  it'll  be 
atheistical.  Trust  public  opinion  to  run  all  downhill  when 
once  it  takes  the  turn.  What  if  I  do  hate  you?  I'm  not 
dngular,     No  end  of  men  hate  you,  mon  lean  Chandos!" 

Something  of  the  fierce  concentrated  passion  faded  from  the 
face  on  which  the  white  moon  shone;  a  great  weariness  of  pain 
came  there. 

"Hate  me?"  he  re-echoed,  dreamily.  'T  never  M-ronged 
any  man,  to  my  own  knowledge.  Why  should  men  hate  me? 
Why  should  you?" 


CHANDOS.  315 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  shook  his  sealskins 
with  a  careless  laugh. 

"  Why?  Why,  hate's  sown  broadcast,  like  so  much  thistle- 
down. Why?  Perhaps  you  robbed  me  of  my  mistress,  or  I 
envied  yours.     Perhaps  you  beat  me  ouce  at  ecarte.     Perhaps 

you  only  provoked  me  with  your  d d  languor  of  aristocratic 

hauteur;  that  did  a  deal  of  mischief  for  you  with  a  good  many. 
Perhaps  you  incensed  me  with  the  very  cursed  grace  of  your 
generosities,  with  the  very  royal  nonchalance  of  your  liberali- 
ties; that  annoyed  more  than  you  wot  of,  too.  Hate?  AVhy, 
what  is  there  to  wonder  at  in  that?  If  I  loved  you,  now,  you 
might  think  it  out  of  the  common!'' 

And  yet,  were  love  won  by  friendship,  loyalty,  and  gifts, 
how  had  he  bought  this  man's!  The  memory  rose  in  him 
where  he  stood,  with  the  goading  banter  of  Trevenna's  ironies 
on  his  ear;  yet  there  was  too  grand  a  fiber  in  his  nature,  too 
proud  a  chivalry  in  his  blood,  for  him  to  smite  his  torturer 
with  the  past  of  forgotten  benefits — for  him  to  appeal  agaiust 
ingratitude  with  the  rebuke,  "  I  served  you  /" 

Yet  to  the  thoughts  of  both  one  memory  unbidden  rose — the 
memory  of  the  summer  night  among  the  green  pine-woods  of 
Baden,  when  a  helpless  debtor,  pining  in  the  Duchy  prisons, 
had  been  released  by  the  free,  loving  hand  of  the  young  heir 
of  Clarencieux. 

The  memory  came  over  Chandos  with  a  sudden  pang  that 
stilled  the  passion  in  him,  and  filled  him  only  with  a  yearn- 
ing, wondering  anguish  of  regret. 

"  You  hate  me!"  he  said,  slowly.     "  You  /" 

It  was  the  only  utterance  of  reproach  that  passed  his  lips;  in 
it  a  world  was  spoken.  Though  every  other  living  thing  had 
forsaken  him,  he  would  have  sworn  that  this  man  would  have 
been  faithful  as  the  dog  beside  him.  The  rebuke,  slight  as  it 
was,  struck  such  lingering  conscience  as  Trevenna  retained, 
and,  with  that  sense  of  momentary  shame,  stung  afresh  all 
his  greedy  triumph,  his  jeering  exultation,  liis  untiring 
mockerv,  into  their  pitiless  exercise. 

"  Well,  if  I  do?  What  if  I  do?  You'll  call  me  a  hound 
that  bites  the  hand  that  fed  him.  Basta!  monseigneur;  there 
are  some  gifts  and  caresses  we  can't  forgive  so  soon  as  we 
could  forgive  a  kick  and  a  curse.  Human  nature!  You  loved 
human  nature;  don't  you  love  it  now?  You  were  an  aris- 
tocrat, and  I  hated  aristocrats.  A  la  lantenie  with  every  one 
of  'em.  Not  but  what  I'm  sorry  for  you — deuced  sorry  for 
you.  I'll  try  to  get  you  a  place,  if  you'll  tell  me  what  you'll 
fill.     There  are  lots  of  things  they'll  give  you;    the  world 


316  CHAKTDOS. 

heartily  pities  you,  you  know,  tbougli  you  were  so  imprudent. 
Besides,  if  anybody  ever  hated  you,  my  poor  Chandos,  they  can 
afford  to  forget  it  now.  You  can't  sink  lower — a  cleaned-out 
gamester,  a  sotted  opium-drinker,  a  beggar  in  the  streets!" 

The  last  words  had  scarce  left  his  tongue  in  their  insolence 
of  assumed  compassion,  in  their  vindictiveness  of  victorious 
gibe,  when  Chandos  dashed  his  hand  back  on  his  lips,  smiting 
them  to  silence,  tlie  sole  answer  that  he  gave  his  traitor.  His 
face  had  changed  terribly  as  he  stood  and  heard;  the  instinct 
of  vengeance,  the  instinct  to  kill,  had  wakened  in  him;  for 
the  moment  a  very  hell  of  crime  was  in  him. 

Trevenna's  laughing,  sanguine,  sun-tanned  features  turned 
livid,  and  set  fixed  as  in  a  vise;  the  blow  stirred  black  blood 
in  him.  Lightly  as  a  leopard,  and  as  savagely,  he  sprung  for- 
ward on  the  man  he  hated.  For  one  instant,  in  the  gray 
gloom  of  the  old  lonely  court,  there  was  a  close-locked  strug- 
gle; wrong  and  hate  found  their  last  issue  in  the  sheer  animal 
blood -thirst,  the  wild-brute,  untamed  instincts  that  live  latent 
m  all  men;  the  next,  the  unequal  contest  ended.  Just  risen 
from  his  sick-bed,  weak  with  long  fasting  and  past  illness, 
fever-worn,  and  already  blind  and  dizzy  with  the  single  exer- 
tion of  the  crashing  blow  that  he  had  dealt,  Chandos  reeled 
over  under  the  fresh  strength  and  supple  science  of  his  ad- 
versary, and  swayed  back  heavily  on  the  grass-grown  stones  of 
the  desolate  court.  The  dog,  who  had  wandered  away  for  a 
moment,  sprung  back  with  a  lion's  bound  and  a  lion's  bay 
as  his  master  fell,  rushed  at  Trevenna,  buried  deep  fangs 
in  his  clothes  and  flesh,  tore  him  with  mad  fury  oiT  Chandos, 
and  stood  guard  over  the  senseless  and  prostrate  form — none 
could  have  put  a  hand  on  it  now,  and  lived. 

Chandos  lay  there  as  he  had  lain  in  the  frozen  night  when 
Guido  Lulli  had  found  him,  utterly  still,  utterly  senseless. 
His  face  was  turned  upward,  and  the  moon  shone  on  it  with  a 
white,  cold,  clear  light. 

His  foe  looked  at  him,  standing  much  as  in  the  dim  cent- 
uries of  the  Moyen  Age,  a  little  further  under  the  shadow  of 
the  tower  of  fair  Queen  Isabean,  John  of  Burgundy  had  once 
looked  ou  in  the  evil  night  at  the  stone-dead  body  of  the  man 
his  jealous,  covetous  lust  of  ambitious  envy  had  pursued  and 
hunted  down  to  the  death. 

He  had  his  victory,  so  sweet  to  him  that  he  never  felt  the 
blood  pour  from  his  shoulder,  where  the  retriever  had  seized 
him  and  dragged  him  off. 

"  How  easy  to  kill  him  now!"  he  thought.  **Bah!  only 
fools  break  laws.     He  will  be  dead  soon  enoughj  he  is  worse 


CHANDOS.  317 

than  dead  now;  he  can  suffer.  I  wish  priests'  tales  were  true, 
and  souls  could  live.  I  wish  his  father's  could  have  power  to 
see  him  as  he  lies — see  the  wreck  of  him  and  the  ruin. " 

There  was  a  hard,  ravenous,  gloating  longing  in  the  thought 
that  stretched  out  beyond  the  grave.  Not  content  with  its 
work  on  earth,  he  looked  lingeringly,  enjoyingly,  reluctant 
to  pass  away;  but  it  was  rare  that  caution  with  him  could  be 
conquered  by  passion  or  desire,  and  he  knew  that  if  he  waited 
a  moment  more  the  dog  would  be  at  his  throat.  He  looked 
once  more  with  a  smile — a  smile  of  full  success — then  went 
out  from  the  still  quadrangle,  leaving  the  chill  moonlight  to 
settle  in  a  broad  unbroken  space  where  Chandos  lay. 

That  black  shade  of  the  old  Kue  du  Temple  had  seen  many 
murders  since  the  night  when  Louis  d'Orleans  was  felled 
down  there  as  he  rode  from  his  tryst  with  Isabeau;  but  it  had 
never  seen  fouler  murder  than  that  which  John  Trevenna  had 
done,  though  he  had  held  back  his  hand  from  the  shedding  of 
blood,  from  the  breaking  of  law. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

'*  SIN    SHALL   NOT   HAVE   DOMINION   OVER   TOU.  '* 

The  square  court,  surrounded  with  its  four  blank  granite 
moss-grown  walls,  with  the  round  pointed  towers  looming 
darkly  up  toward  the  sky,  was  wholly  forsaken;  it  was  three 
parts  in  ruin;  no  one  wandered  there  save  once  or  twice  in  the 
length  of  the  night,  when  the  beat  of  the  jjatrol'sstep  sounded 
through  it,  waking  its  hollow  echoes.  It  was  as  still  as  when, 
in  the  mediceval  ages  which  saw  its  stones  raised,  the  monks  of 
its  brotherhood  had  flitted  ghost-like  through  its  shadows; 
the  23ale  moon  only  looked  down  on  it,  her  spectral  swathes  of 
light  falling  across  the  leaden  gloom  of  the  damp,  lichen- 
covered  pavement. 

How  long  he  lay  there  he  never  knew;  hurled  back,  but 
swaying  over  from  faintness  rather  than  from  injury,  he  had 
fallen  in  a  dead  swoon,  his  heail  i-ttiking  the  stones  with  a  dull 
sound  that  echoed  through  the  silence.  The  fresh  night-air  — 
not  cold,  but  stirred  with  a  cool  westerly  wind — revived  him, 
blowing  over  his  forehead  and  his  eyes.  He  had  been  struck 
down  heavily,  flung  in  wrestling  by  a  merciless  hand;  but 
there  was  I'ttle  sense  of  pain  on  him  as  he  woke  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  where  he  was  and  of  what  had  chanced ;  his  bodily 
weakness  had  prevented  the  struggle  and  the  resistunce  that 
might  havft  been  fatal  to  liim.     He  looked  ud  at  the  moon 


318  CHAKDOS. 

shitiing  so  far  above,  so  clear,  so  bright,  so  tranquil;  life 
seemed  to  have  faded  far  away  from  him,  and  to  have  left  him 
in  the  calmness  of  the  grave. 

He  rose  with  difficulty— his  limbs  felt  powerless  and  broken 
—and  he  staggered  to  an  old  stone  bench  hard  by,  where  a 
shattered  fountain-spout  slowly  let  fail  a  stream  of  water  that 
ebbed  away,  glistening  and  shallow,  in  the  starlight  over  the 
squares  of  the  pavement.  He  stooped  and  drank  eagerly  from 
it^it  was  cold  and  pure — then  sunk  down  on  the  bench  where 
many  weary  and  heavy-laden  had  rested  before  him  in  the 
pressure  of  the  centuries  gone— in  the  violence  and  the  dark- 
ness of  the  Middle  Age.  The  dog  gathered  itself  close  against 
him;  there  was  no  sound  of  the  world  without,  save  the  dull 
roar  of  the  distant  night-traffic,  and  the  striking  of  church- 
clocks  upon  the  stillness;  they  seemed  alone  in  the  heart  of 
Paris— God-forgotten,  man-forsaken,  in  the  midst  of  the 
peopled  world. 

In  the  stillness,  in  the  solemn  night,  with  the  serene  lumi- 
nous stars  gazing  down  on  the  darkness  of  earth  around  him, 
the  ojDium-mists,  the  brandy-drugged  stupor,  the  delirium  of 
exhaustion,  so  long  on  him,  passed  away;  the  thoughts  of  his 
mind  grew  clearer,  for  the  first  hour  since  the  day  of  his  ruin. 
An  intense  agony  was  on  him— the  deeji,  still,  tearless  agony 
of  absolute  despair.  Yet  he  seemed  to  look  on  the  ruin  o±  his 
Hfe  as  from  a  burial-place  from  which  he  would  never  rise;  to 
look  on  and  see  the  world  that  knew  him  no  more,  the  love 
that  had  abandoned,  the  friendship  that  had  betrayed  him, 
as  one  dead,  whose  sense  and  soul  returned  to  behold  all  that 
he  had  cherished  revile  his  memory  and  forget  his  loss.  He 
had  no  feehng  of  present  existence;  all  he  knew  was  that  in 
the  world  of  men  he  had  no  place,  that  in  the  hearts  of  the 
vast  multitude  of  earth  he  had  no  remembrance,  that  he  had 
perished  forever  into  oblivion  when  the  stroke  had  smitten 
him  down.  There,  in  the  stillness  and  solemnity  of  night,  all 
things  seemed  manifest  to  him;  apart  from  all  that  he  had 
once  known,  he  seemed  to  gaze  on  it  and  hear  its  pitiless 
course  pass  on,  as  a  man  lying  paralyzed  watches  and  listens, 
having  no  more  part  or  share  with  the  humanity  around  him 
than  though  his  shroud  had  covered  him,  having  no  hand  to 
raise  if  his  cheek  be  smitten,  having  no  arm  to  lift  if  a  fool 
mock  his  misery,  having  no  lips  to  speak  if  a  lie  make  foul 
mirth  of  his  name;  lifeless,  and  yet  among  the  living;  slain, 
and  yet  alive  to  suffer. 

This  is  how  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  now.     Breath  was 
in  him— that  was  all  he  claimed  of  life;  in  every  other  tning 


CHANDOS,  319 

he  was  a  corpse;  felled  into  a  grave,  whence  he  heard  the  gib- 
ing laughter  of  those  who  jested  at  his  fall,  the  restless  feet  of 
those  who  passed  on  and  bade  him  be  forgot,  the  stones  flung 
down  on  him  by  the  hands  he  had  filled  with  gifts,  the  kisses 
that  were  welcomed  by  the  cheek  his  kiss  had  warmed!  He 
was  dead;  and  as  the  dead  he  was  abandoned  and  forgotten. 

The  beauty  that  had  been  his  was  given  to  the  embrace  of 
another;  the  caress  that  had  been  on  his  lips  now  burned  as 
softly  on  the  mouth  of  his  spoiler;  the  roof  that  had  sheltered 
him  from  his  birth  up  covered  the  sleep  and  the  revel  of 
strangers;  the  treasures  that  had  owned  him  master,  and  been 
gathered  by  him  from  north  to  south,  east  to  west,  were  scat- 
tered broadcast  over  the  earth;  the  world  that  he  had  led 
knew  him  no  more,  and  never  named  his  name;  the  women 
who  had  smiled  in  his  eyes,  and  wound  their  wreathing  arms 
about  his  neck,  let  their  bright  hair  brush  the  bosoms  and 
their  pulses  thrill  to  the  whispers  of  newly  wooed  lovers;  the 
men  whom  he  had  served  followed  the  light  of  rising  suns,  and 
gave  no  heed  to  the  eternal  night  that  had  fallen  for  him:  all 
that  he  had  loved,  all  that  he  had  owned,  all  that  he  had  lost, 
was  gone  to  make  the  joy  of  other  hearts;  his  fate  was  the  fate 
of  the  dead. 

He  was  forgotten  in  his  misery,  as  slaughtered  kings  are 
forgotten  in  their  sealed  sepulchers;  and  his  scepter  was  not 
even  broken,  in  pity  and  honor  for  his  name,  above  his  grave, 
but  passed  to  the  hands  of  those  who  dethroned  him,  bringing 
them  his  wealth,  his  crown,  his  treasuries,  his  lieges. 

Of  all  that  he  had  possessed,  of  all  he  had  reigned  over,  he 
could  claim  nothing — not  even  a  heart  that  had  loved  him. 

He  knew  the  width  and  the  depth  of  his  desolation  as  he 
had  never  known  it.  The  man  whom  he  had  fed  as  utterly 
as  he  had  fed  the  dog  at  his  feet,  when  he  had  been  starving 
and  homeless  and  friendless,  the  man  whom  he  had  lifted  from 
a  foreign  prison  and  served  as  few  serve  their  own  flesh  and 
blood,  the  man  who  had  been  his  guest,  his  debtor,  his  sup- 
pliant for  the  very  bread  and  wine  of  his  table,  had  turned 
against  him,  had  deserted  him,  had  cursed  liim  with  a  foe's 
hate;  no  other  thing  could  have  told  him  how  utterly  he  had 
sunk,  how  utterly  had  the  world  forsaken  him. 

This  man  had  flung  his  scorn  at  him,  and  had  reviled  him 
with  a  traitor's  pitiless  mockery;  he  knew  it  was  the  last  uepth 
of  his  full,  the  last  and  the  most  infamous  witness  of  his  deg- 
radation— as  the  Plantagenet  had  known  it,  when  the  hound 
that  had  been  reared  by  his  hand  went  from  him  to  fawn  oa 
the  con(^ueror. 


S20  CHANDOS. 

la  the  state  to  which  his  mind  had  snnk,  in  the  world-wide 
wreck  that  he  saw  around  him,  the  strangeness  of  Trevenna's 
iatred  struck  him  httle;  he  did  not  muse,  as  earlier  he  would 
have  done,  on  what  could  be  the  secret  and  the  sprino;  of  this 
coarse,  merciless  passion  of  enmity  in  one  to  vdiom  his  gifts 
had  been  as  many  as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  and  whom  he  had 
served  more  truly  than  he  had  served  himself.  He  accepted 
it  with  the  hopeless  apathy  that  comes  with  despair;  all  left 
him,  all  changed  with  his  changed  fate,  all  condemned  him 
where  all  had  caressed  him;  it  seemed  but  of  a  piece  with  the 
rest  that  the  greatest  of  debtors  should  bring  him  as  payment 
the  blackest  of  ingratitude. 

He  had  loved  men  so  well,  he  had  trusted  them  so  blindly, 
he  had  benefited  them  so  loyally,  to  believe  in  their  baseness 
had  been  so  impossible  to  his  nature,  and  to  conceive  their  in- 
fidelity so  distant  from  his  every  thought,  that,  in  an  inevita- 
ble reaction,  he  now,  beneath  the  scourge  of  their  mockery 
and  the  time-serving  of  their  desertion,  looked  for  no  faith 
amidst  them,  wondered  at  no  betrayal.  The  woman  who  had 
nestled  to  his  bosom  with  languid  eyes  of  eloquent  love  and 
sweet  words  of  eternal  tenderness  had  forsworn  her  vows  and 
sold  herself  for  the  gold  of  another  lover;  he  could  feel  no 
wonder  that  the  man  who  had  been  bound  to  him  but  b}'  the 
ties  of  self-interest  and  human  gratitude  had  turned  traitor 
too.  In  one  sense  only  did  the  full  bitterness  and  shame  of 
Trevenna's  taunts  strike  home  to  him;  they  showed  him  how 
low  he  must  have  sunk  that  this  man  could  dare  revile  him. 
It  was  less  loathing  to  his  foe  that  rose  in  him  than  it  was 
loathing  of  himself;  it  was  less  hatred  of  his  betrayer's  infamy 
than  it  was  hatreJ  of  his  own  abasement.  He  shuddered  as  he 
thought  what  adversity  already  had  made  him;  he  dared  not 
think  what  a  brief  while  more  might  make  him. 

The  bodily  illness  which  had  held  him  prostrate  so  long  had, 
in  a  degree,  done  him  good;  it  had  weakened  his  frame,  but  it 
had  saved  his  reason;  it  had  rescued  him  from  madness,  as  a 
heavy  fall  that  makes  the  blood  fiow  from  the  surcharged  brain 
may  rescue  the  man  it  injures.  A  few  nights  more  of  the 
life  he  had  led,  of  the  heavy  drugs,  the  burning  drinks,  the 
endless  gambling,  the  hell  of  vice,  the  delirium  in  which  he 
sought  forgetfulness,  and  he  would  have  been  dead  at  the 
Morgue  or  raving  in  a  mad-house.  The  lengthened  sleep  that 
had  preceded  the  congestion  of  the  lungs  which  cold  and  lack 
of  food  produced,  and  the  danger  in  which  he  had  lingered 
through  so  many  days,  had  cooled  and  had  saved  him,  had 
stilled  the  fever  in  his  blood,  and  freed  his  reason  from  the 


CHAXDOS.  331 

half-drank  phantoms  iu  which  it  hal  lost  itself  and  been 
broken  and  blinded  for  so  long.  He  rose  from  his  wretched 
bed  but  the  shadow  of  what  he  had  ouce  been;  but  tlie  look 
was  gone  from  his  eyes  which  had  made  the Jille  de  joie  in  the 
gaming-den  thrust  the  opium  to  him  and  bid  him  not  live  to 
be  what  he  must  be. 

Her  words  came  back  to  him  now  where  he  sat,  the  serene, 
cool  night,  through  which  the  stars  alone  looked,  stilling  the 
riot  of  his  mind  with  the  sense  of  their  own  eternal  calm. 
*•  \yhat  he  must  be!"     He  knew  well  enough  what  that  was. 

A  little  while  more  of  such  a  life  as  he  had  led  since  the  day 
of  his  ruii],  of  those  hideous  orgies,  of  that  drunken  stupor,  of 
that  horrible  and  ghastly  union  of  poverty  and  intoxication,  of 
despair  and  vice,  and  the  lowest  creature  that  crawled  through 
the  midnight  snows  to  devour  the  stray  relics  of  offal  that  the 
curs  had  left  would  be  as  high  as  he;  a  little  more,  and  every 
better  thing  would  be  crushed  out  in  him,  and  the  vilest  den 
would  spurn  him  from  it  to  die  in  the  river-slime  like  a 
choked  dog. 

'-'What  he  must  be!" 

His  head  sunk  down  on  his  hands  as  the  words  drifted  slow- 
ly through  his  mind;  what  could  he  choose  but  be? 

Had  he  embraced  dishonor  and  accepted  the  rescue  that  a 
lie  would  have  lent  him,  this  misery  in  its  greatest  share  had 
never  been  upon  him.  He  would  have  come  hither  with 
riches  about  him,  and  the  loveliness  he  had  worshiped  would 
have  been  liis  own  beyond  the  touch  of  any  rival's  hand. 
Choosing  to  cleave  to  the  old  creeds  of  his  race,  and  joassing, 
without  a  backward  glance,  into  the  paths  of  honor  and  of 
justice,  it  was  thus  with  him  now.  Verily,  virtue  must  be  her 
own  reward,  as  in  the  Socratic  creed;  for  she  will  bring  no 
other  dower  than  peace  of  conscience  in  her  gift  to  wliosoever 
weds  her.  "  I  have  loved  justice,  and  fled  from  iniquity; 
wherefore  here  I  die  in  exile,"  said  Hildebrand  upon  his 
death-bed.  They  will  be  the  closing  words  of  most  lives  that 
have  followed  truth. 

TVb.at  could  he  be?  What  could  the  future,  if  he  lived  for 
one,  hoLl  for  liim?  Misery,  privation,  abandonment,  soli- 
tude, the  ceaseless  thirst  of  vain  desires,  the  unending  void  of 
eternal  losses,  the  haunting  knowledge  of  all  he  might  have 
been.  These  were  what  faced  him;  these  were  what  alone 
awaited  him.  If  he  lived  on,  he  could  but  look  for  these,  and 
for  worse  yet — he  to  whose  beaut3'-steeped  senses  every  passing 
pain  had  been  unknown,  every  sight  of  deformity  been  veiled! 
He  thought  of  the  old  sacred  legend  of  Herodotus — ^how,  when 


S23  dHAKDOS. 

the  Argire  mother  pi-ayed  at  the  temple  of  Juno  in  Argos  foi 
the  highest  blessing  that  mortals  can  attain  to  be  bestowed  on 
Cleobis  and  Bito,  her  prayer  was  granted;  her  sons  fell  asleep 
to  wake  no  more.  He  knew  now  its  terrible  truth,  its  eternal 
meaning — he  who  had  thought  ten  thousand  times  the  span  of 
his  rich  and  shadowless  life  would  be  too  brief  a  space  to  spend 
on  earth!  Death — it  would  not  come  to  him;  and  he  longed 
for  it  as  a  man  in  a  desert  land,  shipwrecked  amidst  the  burn- 
ing wealth  of  color  and  the  cruel  wantonness  of  beauty  round 
him,  longs  for  water  as  he  perishes  of  thirst. 

Still  yet,  even  yet,  a  pulse  of  life  stirred  that  he  could  not 
with  his  own  hand  slay;  it  was  the  power  of  the  genius  in  him. 
Dulled,  drugged,  stifled,  paralyzed,  beneath  the  weight  of  in- 
finite wi-etchedness,  the  frozen  apathy  of  despair,  the  fever  of 
vice,  the  pangs  of  famine,  it  was  not  dead,  and  the  taunts  of 
his  foe  had  stung  the  pride  sleeping  with  it  into  fresh  exist- 
ence; with  the  outrage  of  John  Trevenna  some  faint  throb  of 
the  thoughts  and  the  instincts  of  old  returned.  The  insult  of 
his  debtor  and  traitor  had  been  the  crowning  agony  of  his 
passion;  but  it  brought  back  life  in  him,  as  the  plunge  of  the 
Burgeon's  steel  will  bring  it  back  and  cut  the  cords  of  death 
by  the  very  force  and  suddenness  of  its  stab. 

A  gentler  hand  could  not  have  saved  him  or  arrested  him; 
the  unpitying  and  brutal  thrusts  of  his  adversary  roused  him 
ere  it  was  yet  too  late. 

There,  in  the  silence,  in  the  solitude,  with  the  dark  walls 
brooding  above  him,  and  the  cold  winter's  moon  looking  down, 
something  of  the  grandeur  of  resistance,  something  of  the 
calm  of  endurance,  came  on  him.  Should  this  man  see  him 
die  in  a  bagnio?  point  to  him  as  one  so  womanish  weak  that 
the  first  stroke  of  calamity  had  slain  him?  mock  him  as  a 
madman,  who,  having  squandered  his  birthright,  flung  his 
manhood  and  his  mind  and  his  soul  away  with  it? 

Before  his  memory  rose  that  day  in  his  childhood  when  he 
had  told  his  father  what  his  future  should  be  made;  he  had 
thought  of  it  ere  now — never  as  now.  He  saw  the  purple  mists 
of  the  distance,  the  golden  brown  of  the  autumn-woods  in  the 
warmth  of  the  sunset,  the  far-stretching  sea  growing  dim  in 
the  dying  light,  while  away  to  the  westward  the  red  flush  of 
the  after-glow  lingered;  the  very  scent  that  uprose  from  the 
dew-laden  earth,  the  very  breath  of  the  wind  stirring  the  coils 
of  the  leaves,  came  back  to  him;  he  saw  his  father's  eyes  look 
down  on  him  with  a  proud  tenderness,  a  gentle  smile,  seeing 
in  him  the  sole  successor  of  the  finest  ambitions  of  a  stainless 
and  world-famous  life,  the  reaper  of  his  ripe  triumphs,  the 


CHANDOS.  323 

heir  of  his  honor  and  his  heritage.  "  I  will  live  so  that  the 
nation  shall  only  need  to  write  '  Chandos  *  on  my  grave,  and 
the  name  will  tell  its  own  tale!"  The  words,  in  all  their 
child-like  visionary  impulse,  all  their  pure,  impossible  ambi- 
tion, all  their  high  aud  chivalrous  desire,  came  back  upon  his 
mind  with  a  deadly  anguish.  These  had  been  the  dreams  of 
his  youth;  and  he  had  kept  true  to  them  thus! 

He  had  been  gifted  with  such  a  genius  as  was  in  Alcibiades 
when  he  listened  in  love  to  the  golden  words  of  his  master,  or 
heard  the  shouts  of  the  people  give  him  to  triumph  as  his 
chariot-wheels  crushed  the  wild  thyme  they  threw.  Should 
he  perish,  like  Alcibiades,  in  the  arms  of  a  courtesan,  lost  to 
all  that  earlier  and  holier  time?  A  greater  inheritance  than 
that  which  he  had  squandered  had  been  given  him  in  his  in- 
tellect; a  greater  suicide  than  that  of  the  body  would  be  the 
suicide  that  now  was  destroying  the  mind  with  which  nature 
had  dowered  him. 

Freedom  was  left  him,  and  intellect — the  two  first  treas- 
ures of  life;  whilst  the  powers  of  his  brains  were  still  his,  and 
his  liberty,  the  poet  would  have  said — 

"Then  first  of  the  mighty,  thank  God  that  thou  art." 

There  are  liberties  sweeter  than  love;  there  are  goals  higher 
than  happiness. 

Some  memory  of  them  stirred  in  him  there,  with  the  noise- 
less flow  of  the  lingering  water  at  his  feet,  and  above  the  quiet 
of  the  stars;  the  thoughts  of  his  youth  came  back  to  him,  and 
his  heart  ached  with  their  longing. 

Out  of  the  salt  depths  of  their  calamity  men  had  gathered 
the  heroisms  of  their  future;  out  of  the  desert  of  their  exile 
they  had  learned  the  power  to  return  as  conquerors.  The 
greater  things  within  him  awakened  from  their  lethargy;  the 
innate  strength  so  long  untried,  so  long  lulled  to  dreamy  in- 
dolence and  rest,  uncoiled  from  its  prostration;  the  force  that 
would  resist  and,  it  might  be,  survive,  slowly  came  upon  him, 
with  the  taunts  of  his  foe.  It  was  possible  that  there  was  that 
still  in  him  which  might  be  grander  and  truer  to  the  ambi- 
tions of  his  imaginative  childhood  under  adversity  than  in  the 
voluptuous  sweetness  of  his  rich  and  careless  life.  It  was  pos- 
sible, if— if  he  could  once  meet  the  fate  he  shuddered  from, 
once  look  at  the  bitterness  of  the  life  that  waited  for  him, 
and  enter  on  its  desolate  and  arid  waste  without  going  back 
to  the  closed  gates  of  his  forfeited  paradise  to  stretch  liis  limbs 
within  their  shadow  once  more  ere  he  died. 

There  is  more  courage  needed  oftttntimes  to  accept  the  on* 


324  CHANDOS. 

ward  flow  of  existence,  bitter  as  the  waters  of  Marali,  black 
and  narrow  as  the  channel  of  Jordan,  than  there  is  ever  need- 
ed to  bow  down  the  neck  to  the  sweep  of  the  death-angel*s 
sword. 

He  rose  slowly  and  looked  upward;  the  hours  had  fled,  the 
city  was  sleeping,  the  busy  feet  of  the  crowds  were  silent,  and 
the  hush  of  an  intense  rest  was  on  the  world  around  him.  Be- 
neath it  vice  might  yet  riot  and  misery  still  moan;  but  it  was 
toward  dawn,  and  the  noiseless  peace  was  unbroken;  the 
trembling  rays  of  moonlight  shivered  on  the  water's  surface, 
and  far  above,  shining  from  the  deep,  blue-black,  fathomless 
vault,  the  luster  of  the  stars  burned  through  the  brilliancy  of 
winter  air — a  myriad  worlds  uncounted  and  unknown.  Men 
had  abandoned  and  hope  forsaken  him ;  on  the  earth  he  had 
no  place,  and  in  human  love  no  memory;  but  there,  under 
their  solemn  light,  their  own  tranquillity  encompassed  him; 
solitude  lost  its  desolation  in  the  eternity  and  the  intensity  of 
that  limitless  space,  of  that  unknown  deity.  A  life-time  suf- 
fered here — what  was  it?  the  span  of  a  single  day  in  those 
bright  worlds  beyond  the  sun.  In  face  of  that  changeless  and 
endless  calm,  the  burden  of  so  brief  a  labor  might  well_  be 
borne;  sufficient  if  through  travail  the  faintest  shadow  of  like- 
ness unto  truth  were  gained.  To  many  in  their  suS'ering  that 
unalterable  and  eternal  serenity  of  nature  is  pitiless,  is  unen- 
durable; they  find  no  mercy  in  it,  no  shelter,  and  no  aid;  to 
him  it  was  divine  as  consolation,  divine  with  the  majesty  of 
God.  Above  the  fret  and  vice  and  wretchedness  of  earth  it 
brooded  so  still,  so  cold,  it  stretched  so  boundless  and  so 
deathless  out  into  the  infinite  realms  of  sj^acel — from  it  there 
seemed  to  breathe  the  promise  of  a  future  when  men  should 
live  "  scepterless,  free,  uncircumscribed;"  from  it  there 
seemed  to  "steal  the  bidding,  "  Let  the  world  abandon  you,  but 
to  yourself  be  true." 

His  foe  too  early  had  triumphed. 

Though  he  had  lost  all,  there  were  with  him  still  the  dreams 
of  his  youth;  the  world  forsook  him,  and  the  width  of  the 
earth  stretched  before  him — a  desert  laid  waste,  barren  and 
pitiless  as  stone,  through  which  he  must  pass,  wearily  and  in 
Bolitude,  to  live  and  to  die  alone;  yet  he  arose  with  his  dead 
strength  revived,  with  the  calm  of  a  passionless  endurance 
fallen  on  him. 

He  accepted  the  desolation  of  his  life,  for  the  sake  of  all  be- 
j'ond  life,  greater  than  life,  which  looked  down  on  him  from 
the  silence  of  the  night. 


CHANDOS.  331 


BOOK  THE  FIFTH. 

Seggundo  in  piuma, 
In  fama  non  si  vien. 

Dakte. 

Comme  il  etait  rSveiir  au  matin  de  son  3,ge, 
Comme  il  etait  penseur  au  terme  du  voyage  f 

Hugo. 

Lucky  men  are  favorites  of  Heaven. 
All  own  the  chief,  when  Fortune  owns  the  cause. 

Dkyden. 


CHAPTER  I. 

TS   EXILE. 

It  was  sunset  in  Venice — that  supreme  moment  when  tho 
magical  flush  of  light  transfigures  all  the  southern  world,  and 
wanderers  whose  eyes  have  long  ached  with  the  grayness  and 
the  glare  of  northward  cities  gaze  and  think  themselves  in 
heaven.  The  still  waters  of  the  lagunes,  the  marbles  and  the 
porphyry  and  the  jasper  of  the  mighty  palaces,  the  soft  gray 
of  the  ruius  all  covered  with  clinging  green  and  the  glowing 
blossoms  of  creepers,  the  hidden  antique  nooks  where  some 
woman's  head  leaned  out  of  an  arched  casement,  like  a  dream 
of  tlie  Dandolo  time,  when  the  Adriatic  swarmed  with  the  re- 
turning galleys  laden  vviLh  Byzantine  spoil,  the  dim,  mystic, 
majestic  walls  that  towered  above  the  gliding  surface  of  the 
eternal  water,  once  alive  with  flowers,  and  music,  and  the 
gleam  of  golden  tresses,  and  the  laughter  of  careless  revelers 
in  the  Venice  of  Goldoiii,  in  the  Venice  of  the  Past.  Every- 
where the  sunset  glowed  with  the  marvel  of  its  color,  with  the  ' 
wonder  of  its  warmth. 

Then  a  moment,  and  it  was  gone.  Night  fell  with  the 
hushed,  shadowy  stillness  that  belongs  to  Venice  alone;  and 
in  place  of  the  riot  and  luxuriance  of  color  there  was  the  trem- 
ulous darkness  of  the  young  night,  with  the  beat  of  an  oar  on 
the  water,  tlie  scent  of  unclosing  carnation-buds,  the  white 
gleam  of  moonlight,  and  the  odor  of  lilies  of  the  valley  blos- 
soming in  the  dark  archway  of  some  mosaic-lined  window. 

One  massive  and  ancient  house  towered  up  amidst  many  an- 
other palace — a  majestic,  melancholy  place,  with  shafts  of 


326  CHANDOS. 

black  marble  and  columns  of  porphyry,  and  deep  sea-piles  that 
the  canal  bathed  into  a  hundred  umber  tints.  Long  ago  some 
of  the  greatest  of  the  oligarchy  had  held  there  their  highest 
state;  now  it  was  scarcely  habited,  left  to  decay,  and  lost  in 
gloom — a  sepulcher  of  dead  glories,  while  the  insoleuce  of  for- 
eign mirth  and  the  shame  of  foreign  arms  outraged  the  cap- 
tive and  widowed  beauty  of  the  Adriatic  spouse.  It  was  lone- 
ly and  unspeakably  desolate;  with  the  gliding  sheet  of  the 
still  water  beneath  its  walls,  and  the  long  somber  lines  of  for- 
saken palaces  stretching  beyond  it  on  either  side,  and  facing  it 
in  the  splendor  of  the  early  moon.  Yet  it  was  infinitely  im- 
pressive, infinitely  grand," standing  there  with  its  medieval 
sculptures  touched  with  rays  of  starlight,  and  its  costly  mar- 
bles washed  bj*  the  ebbing  of  the  tide. 

At  one  of  its  lofty,  narrow  casements  a  man  leaned  out  into 
the  fragrant  spring-tide  air;  he  had  risen  from  close  studies 
in  the  chamber  within — vast  in  space  as  a  king's  throne- 
room,  barren  in  garniture  as  a  contadina's  hut — to  watch  the 
fading  of  the  sun,  the  sudden  loss  of  all  the  wealth  of  color 
in  the  gray  hues  of  evening;  and  he  lingered  still,  now  that 
the  night  had  wholly  fallen.  In  that  stillness,  in  that  soft 
lapping  of  the  water,  in  that  glisten  in  the  distance  of  the 
silvery  lagune,  in  that  scarcely  stirring  wind  filled  with  the 
breath  of  opening  blossoms,  there  was  a  lulling  charm — there 
was  the  echo  of  a  long-lost  youth. 

His  face  was  of  a  gre'^t  beauty;  though  many  years  had 
passed  over  it,  time  could  touch  and  could  dim  it  but  little> 
but  in  the  eyes  there  was  the  exile's  weariness  and  the  deep 
thought  of  the  scholar;  on  the  mouth  there  was  that  certain 
look  which  comes  of  bitter  pain  borne,  of  strong  victories 
wrung  from  calumny  and  poverty  and  hard  defiance — such  a 
look  as  Dante  might  have  worn,  yet  less  harsh,  though  not 
less  mournful,  than  the  Florentine's.  He  looked  down  on  the 
deep  and  sleeping  shadows,  on  the  gliding  darkness  of  the 
canal  below;  the  sweetness  of  the  young  night,  the  Adriatic 
fragrance  of  the  sea-wafted  air,  brought  him  a  tliousand  mem- 
ories across  the  desert  of  long  years. 

Through  his  mind  floated  such  thoughts  as  wearied  Cleon: 

"  Indeed,  to  know  is  something,  and  to  prove 
How  all  this  beauty  might  be  enjoy'd  is  more; 
But,  knowing  naught,  to  enjoy  is  something  too. 
Yon  rower  with  the  molded  muscles  there, 
Lowering  the  sail,  is  nearer  it  than  I." 

There  had  been  a  time  when  every  breath  of  life  had  been 
for  him  enjoyment,  rich  as  the  god's  life  of   Dionysus.     la 


CfiANDOS.  337 

moments  such  as  these  he  longed  for  that  dead  time,  as  the 
poet  Ovid,  ill  the  ice  and  winter  storms  and  snow-bound  for- 
ests of  his  Danubian  exile,  longed  for  the  golden  sunlight,  for 
the  purple  pomp,  for  the  glad  idolatry  of  the  vine-crowned 
land  that  knew  his  place  no  more. 

"  Am  I  any  nearer  the  ambitions  of  my  youth  than  I  was 
twenty  years  ago? — am  I  as  near?"  he  thought.  In  the  volupt- 
Jious  hush  and  fragrance  of  the  Venetian  night  his  years  seemed 
jold  and  fruitless  and  heavy-laden. 

Where  he  stood,  in  the  dark  arch  of  the  window,  the  meas- 
ured music  of  oars  beat  the  water;  beneath  the  walls  several 
gondolas  glided;  on  the  silence  rose,  chanted  by  the  mellow 
voice  of  young  Venetians,  a  hymn  of  liberty.  They  might 
pay  to  their  tyrants  well-nigh  with  life  for  its  singing;  yet 
that  knowledge  gave  no  tremor  to  the  cadence  that  rang  so 
bold  and  so  clear  in  the  stillness.  Passionate,  yet  unspeakably 
sad,  rich  as  the  world  of  color  that  had  just  passed  from  the 
world,  but  melancholy  as  the  breathless  stillness  of  the  calm 
lagunes,  the  ode  of  freedom  was  sung  by  the  lips  of  those  who 
knew  themselves  slaves — young,  fresh  voices,  the  voices  of 
youth  and  of  vivid  ambition,  yet  touched  to  a  deeper  meaning 
and  vibrating  with  a  hopeless  desire;  for  they  were  the  voices 
also  of  forbidden  hope,  and  of  thoughts  held  in  bond  and  en- 
chained.    It  was  the  ''  lo  triumphe  "  of  liberty — 

"  Thou  huntress  swifter  than  the  Moon!  thou  terror 
Of  the  world's  wolves!  thou  bearer  of  the  quiver, 
Whose  sun-like  shafts  pierce  tempest-tossed  error 
As  light  may  pierce  the  clouds;" 

but  also  it  was  the  lament  of  Leojjardi — the  lament  most 
weary,  most  utterly  desolate,  of  all  upon  earth — the  lament  of 
men  whose  hearts  ache  for  lofty  aims  and  noble  fields,  and 
whose  lives  are  denied  all  pui'pose  and  all  effort — of  men 
wiiose  country  is  in  thralldom. 

The  chant  ceased;  all  the  many  and  melodious  tones  which 
had  risen  on  the  night  and  swelled  louder  and  sweeter  down 
the  canal,  till  the  boatmen  far  off  heard  the  echo  and  gave  it 
back,  were  suddenly  silenced,  as  a  choir  of  song-birds  will 
cease  at  noontide.  In  the  prow  of  the  foremost  vessel  a  young 
Venetian  rose,  the  gleam  of  his  auburn  hair  and  the  kindling 
light  on  his  face  like  some  old  painter's  Gabriel  or  Michael 
yonder  in  the  gloom  of  the  ancient  churches.  He  lifted  his 
eyes  to  the  arch  of  the  casement  where  ho  stood  up  in  the 
white,  tremulous  luster  of  the  moon. 

"  You  have  striven  for  the  freedom  of  thought  and  for  the 


328  CHAISTMDS." 

liberty  of  judgment,"  he  said,  simply.  "  Veaice,  who  hac 
lost  them  both,  loves  you  for  that  which  you  have  loved,  and 
gives  you  thus  the  only  homage  she  uow  dares."" 

Without  pause,  without  a  word  more,  the  rowers  bent  above 
their  oars,  the  gondolas  floated  down  the  dark  surface,  the 
young  impassioned  faces  of  the  singers  turned  backward  with 
a  fond  and  reverent  farewell  as  their  vessels  swept  into  the 
shadows,  so  deep,  so  rayless,  underneath  the  walls  of  the  aban- 
doned palaces:  it  was  all  they  had  to  give,  that  song  of  free- 
dom in  a  fettered  land. 

He  to  whom  they  gave  it  thought  it  more  than  the  gift  of 
crowns  laid  at  his  feet.  It  touched  him  strangely  with  its  sud- 
denness, with  its  meaning — this  gratitude  rendered  to  him  by 
the  young,  pure,  patriot-voices  of  those  who  might  pay  the 
cost  of  that  night's  utterance  with  the  pain  of  captive's  bond- 
age or  of  exile's  banishment.  It  was  more  worth  to  him  than 
any  diadem  with  which  the  world  could  have  anointed  him — 
this  recognition  of  what  he  sought,  this  knowledge  of  why  he 
labored. 

It  came  to  him  as  answer  and  rebuke  to  the  thoughts  which 
had  been  with  him  as  that  unbidden  music  rose  upon  the 
night.  To  enjoy  was  much;  but  to  seek  truth  and  labor  for 
freedom  might  be  more. 

"  One  fetter  of  tradition  loosened,  one  web  of  superstition 
broken,  one  ray  of  light  let  in  on  darkness,  one  principle  of 
liberty  secured,  are  worth  the  living  for,"  he  mused.  "  Fame! 
— it  is  the  flower  of  a  day,  that  dies  when  the  next  sun  rises. 
But  to  do  something,  however  little,  to  free  men  from  their 
chains,  to  aid  something,  however  faintly,  the  rights  of  reason 
and  of  truth,  to  be  unvanquished  through  all  and  against  all, 
these  may  bring  one  nearer  the  pure  ambitions  of  youth. 
Happiness  dies  as  age  comes  to  us;  it  sets  forever,  with  the 
suns  of  early  years:  yet  perhaps  we  may  keep  a  higher  thing 
beside  which  it  holds  but  a  brief  royalty,  if  to  ourselves  we  can 
rest  true,  if  for  the  liberty  of  the  world  we  can  do  anything." 

For  he  was  one  of  those  who  to  the  cause  of  freedom  and  of 
truth  bring  the  wealth  of  their  intellect  and  the  years  of  their 
life,  and  receive  but  little  requital  save  a  sullen  reverence 
wrung  from  an  unwilling  world,  and  the  railing  bitterness  of 
the  crowds  who  abhor  light  and  hug  error  and  tradition  close. 
His  words  stirred  with  shame  the  hearts  of  nations  steeped  in 
lust  and  lethargy  and  the  greed  of  gold;  and  they  awoke  to 
hoot  and  hiss  the  one  who  dared  rouse  them  from  their  torpor 
or  arrest  them  in  their  mone3'--changing.  His  thoughts  sunk 
down  into  the  unworn  hearts  of  youth,  and  they  shook  them- 


CHANDOS.  329 

selves  free  from  the  ashes  of  superstition  and  the  cnains  of 
creeds;  and  the  priests  of  superstition  cursed  him.  His  utter- 
ance probed  the  surface  of  the  world,  and,  piercing  its  panoply 
of  wordy  falsehood,  brought  to  it  the  clear  keen  light  of  skep- 
ticism and  truth;  and  the  world  was  weary  of  him,  it  slept  so 
much  more  soundly  beneath  the  veil  and  in  the  darkuess.  He 
loved  men  with  a  pity  and  a  tolerance  no  trial  could  exhaust; 
he  would  have  led  them,  if  he  could,  to  the  search  and  the 
knowledge  of  other  things  than  their  gold-thirst  and  their 
paradise  of  lies;  and  they  turned  back  to  their  treasuries  of 
money,  to  their  granaries  of  hypocrisies,  and  would  have  none 
of  him.  Their  ears  were  willfully  deaf,  their  eyes  were  will- 
fully blind,  their  feet  loved  the  trodden  paths,  their  hands 
were  busy  grasping  their  neighbors'  goods;  they  wondered  at 
and  they  reviled  him;  they  would  not  follow  to  the  mountain- 
air  he  bade  them  breathe;  they  stayed  in  the  mud,  seeking  a 
coin.  He  was  alone.  The  world  gave  him  fame  grudgingly, 
reluctantly,  because  it  could  not  withhold  it  longer;  but  it  left 
him  alone  and  condemned  because  he  saw  no  holiness  in  the 
shrine  of  gold  and  no  right  divme  in  the  tyranny  of  tradition. 

He  was  alone;  eagles  that  love  the  highlight-penetrated  air, 
that  has  no  mist  and  clog  of  earth-born  dust,  must  ever  dwell 
in  solitude.  Yet  now  and  then  there  came  to  him,  as  there 
had  come  from  the  voices  of  fettered  men  to-night,  an  echo  of 
his  own  thoughts,  a  recognition  of  his  own  labors,  and  these 
sufficed  to  him. 

Where  he  leaned  now,  in  the  fragrant  Venetian  night,  with 
the  Southern  song  of  liberty  still  seeming  to  linger  above  the 
waters,  and  the  moonlight  full  ujDon  the  decaying  grandeur  of 
the  forsaken  sea-palaces,  he  thought  of  the  words  of  Dante, 
written  in  exile,  as  he  lived  in  exile  now. 

They  who  labor  justly  for  the  sheer  sake  of  truth  find  no 
present  reward:  will  they  hereafter  find  it?  A  weary  question; 
—one  to  which  men  never  yet  have  gained  an  answer. 


CHAPTER  II. 

IN"   TRIUMPH. 

The  stars,  as  they  shone  on  Venice,  shone  likewise  further 
northward  on  one  of  the  mighty,  labyrinthine,  ink-black  cities 
of  labor.  'J'lio  heavy  pall  cf  smoke  loomed  over  the  forests  of 
roofs,  of  chimnej-s,  of  factories,  of  churches;  the  bells  of  the 
latter  were  chiming  with  incessant,  joyous,  pealing  clangor. 


330  CHANDOS. 

bells  that  rang  a  chime  called  of  God  every  seventh  day  in  the 
midst  of  the  worship  of  Mammon,  bells  put  up  in  many  a 
steeple,  iron  offerings  to  Deity  by  iron  hands  that  wrung  the 
last  bitter  drop  out  of  poverty,  and  clammed  the  last  starve- 
ling of  labor,  and  bought  redemption  cheaply  by  a  sop  to  a 
parish  priest. 

The  bells  were  rhyming  wildly,  with  no  pretense,  happily, 
that  it  was  in  the  honor  of  Godhead  now — tossing  upward 
through  the  weight  of  murky  air  wave  on  wave  of  changing 
sound,  of  riotous  triumj)h,  of  passionate,  mirthful,  random, 
uncouth  music  like  the  harmony  of  Thor's  great  hammers. 
Under  the  sea  of  iron-echoing  noise  vast  crowds  pressed 
tumultuous,  in  a  grim  triumph  like  that  of  the  metal  melo- 
dies. Their  hard,  keen,  indomitable  faces  were  sharp-set  as 
the  knives  they  made,  were  massive  as  the  h'on  they  worked; 
and  on  them  was  the  flush  and  the  pride  of  victory.  It  was 
on  the  night  of  a  great  election,  an  election  that  had  followed 
in  Lenten  time  on  a  sudden  and  unlooked-for  dissolution  —an 
appeal  to  the  countiy  as  agitating  as  it  had  been  unforeseen; 
and  they  had  brought  to  their  fore  their  champion,  their  idol, 
the  most  famous  of  all  his  party.  In  this  vast  city  of  Dars- 
hampton  there  was  but  one  name  and  but  one  sovereignty — 
his.  The  people  had  crowned  him;  and  who  should  dare  to 
discrown  him? 

In  one  of  the  chambers  of  a  magnificent  hotel,  he  stood  in 
the  dusky  red  glow  of  the  sunset  that  burned  through  the 
smoke-laden  atmosphere  and  fell  about  his  feet  as  though  it 
too  were  eager  to  seek  him  out  and  smile  on  him — this  man, 
omnipotent  in  all  he  undertook.  A  crov/d  of  friends  were 
about  him,  breathless  in  congratulation  on  what  was  but  a  re- 
peated triumph,  waiting  in  delighted  warmth  of  welcome  on 
one  in  whom  they  saw  a  deity  more  potent  than  all  the  gods  of 
Semitic  or  Acha3an  creeds — the  deity  of  a  Supreme  success. 
Throngs  had  been  about  him  from  earliest  days — throngs  of 
friends,  of  flatterers,  of  men  who  believed  in  him  honestly  and 
would  have  fought  for  him  to  the  death  had  need  been — of 
men  who  believed  in  nothing  except  the  divinity  of  success, 
and  followed  that  idolatrously  in  him  because  they  saw  his 
acumen  never  fail,  his  fortune  never  change.  The  city  would 
give  him  its  banquet  to-night;  his  party  brought  him  devoted 
gratitude  and  ecstatic  pride,  the  country  bestowed  on  him 
scarce  less  admiration;  young  men  looked  to  him  as  their 
leader,  elder  looked  to  him  to  rea  1  the  harvest  of  the  seed  they 
had  sown  in  the  future;  the  aristocracy  dreaded,  the  plutocracy 
bribed,  the   multitude  adored  him.     He   was  a  great  man 


CHANDOS.  331 

already;  later  on  he  would  be  a  greater — popular  beyond  all 
conception,  triumphant  in  whatever  he  essayed. 

The  shouts  and  the  cheers  of  the  populace  swelled  louder 
and  louder;  the  clamor  was  hoarse,  Titauic,  almost  terrible  in 
its  imperative  power,  as  the  voice  of  the  People  always  is 
when  once  it  thunders  through  the  laud — imperative  for  mur- 
der  as  imperative  for  bread,  mighty  and  resistless  alike  in  both. 
Here  it  rose  with  one  accord,  with  one  word — his  own  name. 
They  had  brought  him  in — those  men  with  their  horny,  supple 
hauds,  and  their  blackened,  resolute  brows,  and  tlieir  limbs 
like  the  limbs  of  the  old  BersasrkerS;  those  men  of  the  Black 
Country,  who  grasped  so  doggedly  at  truths  sharp  as  steel,  yet 
grasped  but  at  half  truths,  and,  so  bhnded,  reached  but  hatred 
of  an  Order  when  they  thought  they  grasped  at  liberty  for 
Mankind.  The  shouts  swelled  louder  and  louder,  more  and 
more  full  of  peremptory  demand;  they  had  brought  him 
through,  or  thought  they  had,  and  clamored  for  their  idol. 

He  humored  them  ever,  as  a  lion-tamer  humors  his  cubs 
that  he  may  cut  the  claws  and  grind  smooth  the  teeth  and 
make  the  brave  beast  lie  down  passive  as  a  spaniel  at  his  beck, 
and  turn  to  profit  the  world's  terror  when  he  shows  how 
docilely  he  guides  the  wild,  tawny  desert-king  that  at  his  bid- 
ding would  leap  forth  and  tear  and  slay. 

He  went  out  on  the  balcony,  and  the  din  of  the  acclama- 
tions rolled  up  to  the  red  evening  skies  like  thunder.  In  the 
large  square  before  the  building,  and  in  the  transverse  streets 
that  crossed  and  met,  the  dense  multitudes  were  gathered, 
wave  on  wave  of  human  life,  surging  in  in  swift  succession, 
and  stretching  far  and  wide  away  beyond  the  sight,  like  a 
stormy  aud  restless  sea.  Their  dark  faces,  swarthy  and  be- 
grimed, shrewd  and  stern,  were  turned  upward  to  the  balcony 
with  an  eager  pride  and  pleasure,  while  from  the  brawny 
chests  of  the  iron-workers  that  tremendous  svelcome  rang. 
The  sun  shone  more  burnished  red  in  the  crimson,  heavy  west, 
and,  slanting  in  broad,  glowing,  dusky  streams  of  hght  athwart 
the  misty  gloom,  fell  on  that  ocean  of  upraised  faces,  and 
across  the  eyes  of  the  man  they  honored — eyes  so  keen,  so 
mirtiiful,  so  unerring,  so  full  of  sagacious  life,  of  tsiumphaut 
victory. 

"  He  is  the  man  for  the  Future,"  said  one  stalwart  worker, 
M'ith  the  breath  of  the  furnace-blasts  and  the  blaclvuess  of  the 
iron-foundry  upon  him,  yet  who  read  Bentham,  and  Fourier, 
and  Mill. 

One,  less  book-wise  and  more  world -wise,  pierced  nearer  to 
the  secret  of  success,  to  the  root  of  popularity,  as  he  answered — 


332  CHANDOS. 

"  He's  more:  he's  the  man  for  the  Present.** 

"And  the  man  for  the  People!"  shouted  a  third,  behind 
them.  The  words  were  caught  up  and  eclioed  on  all  sides,  till 
they  ran  through  the  packed  thousands  like  electric  fluid,  till 
from  the  whole  of  the  swaying  gigantic  mass  tlie  words  broke 
unanimously,  rising  high  above  the  pealing  of  the  bells  and  the 
strife  of  the  streets,  hurling  his  name  out  in  that  grim,  pas- 
sionate, furious  love  of  a  multitude  which  has  ever  in  it  some- 
thing, and  well-nigh  as  much,  of  menace  as  of  caress. 

He  nodded  to  them  with  a  pleasant,  familiar  smile — such  a 
smile  as  a  boy  gives  to  his  favorite  and  unruly  dogs;  then  he 
stood  more  forward  against  the  iron  scroll-work  of  the  bal- 
cony, looking  down  on  that  movement  beneath  him,  and 
spoke. 

Not  for  the  first  time  here,  in  Darshampton,  by  many,  the 
ringing,  metallic  clarion-roll  of  the  voice  they  knew  so  well 
stilled  them  like  magic,  thrilled  them  as  hounds  thrill  at  the 
notes  of  a  horn,  and  held  them  in  check  as  the  horn  holds  the 
pack.  He  spoke  as  only  those  can  speak  who  have  been  long 
trained  to  the  public  arena,  who  have  studied  every  technical- 
ity of  their  science  and  every  weakness  of  their  audience,  who 
have  brought  to  it  not  only  the  talent  of  native  skill,  but  the 
polish  of  long  usage,  the  power  of  assured  practice.  He  spoke 
well — keen,  trenchant,  vigorous,  humorous  oratory,  English 
to  the  backbone,  coarse  in  its  pungency,  withal,  here  as  it 
could  be  scholarly  elsewhere,  striking  to  the  heart  of  its  subject 
as  surely  and  as  straightly  as  the  arrow  of  Tell  to  the  core  of 
the  apple.  There  was  a  breathless  silence  while  he  spoke,  the 
trumpet-like  tones  of  his  ringing  voice  penetrating  without 
effort  to  the  furthermost  of  the  listening  throngs,  the  Swift- 
like humor  and  wit  shaking  sardonic  laughter  from  the  brawny 
chests  of  his  hearers,  the  biting  and  incisive  reasoning  drawn 
in  by  them  as  eagerly  as  town-dusted  lungs  draw  in  the  salt, 
fresh  breezes  of  the  sea.  He  was  their  master,  though  they 
thought  themselves  his  electors  and  creators;  and  he  played  at 
will  on  them,  as  a  strong,  skilled  hand  plays  on  a  stringed  in- 
strument, moving  it  to  what  cadence  he  chooses.  They  list- 
ened in  devoted  silence,  only  broken  by  tumultuous  cheering, 
or  by  the  hoarse,'gaunt  laughter  that  was  ominous  as  any 
curses  raised  against  what  they  hated.  He  spoke  long,  though 
so  succinctly,  so  pungently,  that  the  minutes  of  his  speech 
seemed  moments;  then  ceased,  while  the  red  sun-glow  still 
strayed  to  his  feet,  and  the  chimes  of  the  bells  swung  wild  de- 
light, and  the  shouts  of  the  populace  teeming  below  deafened 
the  air  with  his  name. 


CHANDOS.  333 

He  laughed  to  himself  as  he  bowed  many  times  his  thanks 
and  his  farewell,  then  sauntered  from  the  balcony  into  the 
lighted  and  crowded  room,  glancing  back  at  that  shifting  sea 
of  upraised,  earnest,  hard-lined  faces  in  the  dusky  heat  of  the 
fading  sun. 

"  D d  rascals,  every  one  of  you,  my  friends,"  he  thought, 

"or  out-and-out  fools;  God  knows  which.  Rave  about  op- 
pression and  the  wrongs  of  Capital  to  Labor,  while  you  send 
your  children  to  sweat,  at  five  years  old,  in  furnaces,  and 
threaten  to  kill  your  brother  if  he  don't  join  your  trade-union 
and  strike  when  he's  told;  clamor  for  the  rights  of  man,  and 
worry  your  brains  after  political  economics,  while  you  think 
all  the  '  rights  '  center  in  scribbling  your  name  in  a  poll-book 
and  talking  mild  sedition  in  a  tap-room!  Oh,  you  precious 
fools!  how  we  use  you,  and  how  we  laugh  at  you!" 

For  he  was  not  even  wholly  true  to  those  who  were  so  true 
to  him;  and  he  had  no  belief  even  in  their  thorough,  heart- 
felt earnestness,  erring  from  imperfect  vision,  and  distorted 
from  imperfect  education,  but  sincere  and  true  in  its  widest 
errors. 

They  thought  they  had  made  him  what  he  was;  he  knew 
that  they  were  his  tools,  his  wax,  his  weapons. 

He  glanced  back  once  on  to  the  vast,  oscillating  crowd  in 
the  reddening  angry  sunset  mist,  and  the  laugh  of  a  consum- 
mated victory,  the  insolence  of  a  secure  triumph,  was  in  the 
backward  flash  of  his  eyes,  mingled,  too,  with  a  certain  proud 
power,  a  certain  exaltation  of  self-achieved  distinction.  His 
name  was  still  echoing  to  the  skies  from  the  lungs  of  the  close- 
packed  throngs. 

"Who  dare  sneer  at  that  name  now?"  he  thought;  and 
there  was  in  that  thought  the  glow  which  Themistocles  felt 
when  they  who  had  exiled  him  as  a  nameless  thing  of  the 
■people,  to  wrestle  with  the  ba?e-born  in  the  Eing  of  Cyno- 
sarges,  welcomed  him  in  the  city  of  the  Violet  Crown  as  the 
victor  of  Salamis,  the  slayer  of  Persia. 

Then  he  went  within  from  the  stormy  clangor  and  the  scar- 
let flush  of  evening,  and  was  feasted  through  that  night  by  the 
men  of  the  mighty  town,  nobles  who  hated  him  bearing  their 
part  in  his  honor,  rivers  of  wine  flowing  to  his  toast,  the 
crowds  of  the  streets,  knowing  no  theme  but  his  present  and 
his  future,  the  nation  on  the  morrow  saying,  as  the  city  said 
to-night,  ' '  He  is  a  great  man,  he  will  be  a  still  greater. " 


334  ,  CHANDOS. 


BOOK  THE  SIXTH. 

From  the  world  as  it  is  Man's,  into  the  world  as  it  is  God's. 

Cowley. 


Sie  ist  volkommen  und  sie  fehlet 
Darin  allein  dass  sie  mich  liebt. 


Goethe. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"primaveka!    gioyentu  bell*  anno!" 

Down  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain-slopes  reaching  to  Val- 
ombrosa,  hidden  away  in  the  deep  belt  of  the  chestnut-forests, 
was  a  little  Tuscan  village.  Sheltered  high  above  by  the  pines 
of  the  hills,  and  veiled  from  every  glance  by  the  thick  masses 
of  the  chestnut-leaves,  no  strange  foot  ever  scarcely  wandered 
to  it.  It  was  out  of  the  route  of  travelers;  it  had  slumbered 
here  for  ages:  it  had  beenhei-e  when  Milton  looked  on  the  Val 
d'Arno;  it  had  been  here  when  Totila  thundered  at  the  gates 
of  Rome;  it  had  been  here  when  Plautus  caught  in  the  color 
of  his  words  the  laughter,  the  mirth,  the  tavern-wit,  the  girls 
a  libre  allure,  the  wine- brawls,  and  the  Bacchan  feasts  of  the 
Latin  life;  it  had  been  here  through  ali  changes,  but  it  had 
never  changed.  Belike,  it  had  been  sacked  by  Csesar,  razed 
by  Theodoric,  visited  by  Stilicho,  plundered  by  the  Franks  of 
Carl;  but  it  was  still  the  same,  surviving  all  ruin,  and  covered 
in  the  spring-time  with  so  dense  a  leafy  shade  that  the  gray 
tint  of  its  stone,  the  red  brown  of  its  few  roofs,  showed  no 
more  than  the  oriole's  nest  through  the  boughs.  The  purple 
plums  of  the  olives  ripened  and  were  gathered,  the  red  osiers 
changed  to  tender  green,  the  grapes  were  garnered  with  the 
vintage-tide,  the  cattle  came  down  the  hill-sides  when  the  sun 
sunk  low,  the  chestnuts  turned  to  ruddy  brown  and  broke  their 
husks  and  fell  upon  the  moss;  a  few  lives  were  born,  a  few 
lives  vere  buried.  These  were  all  the  changes  known  there, 
the  changes  of  the  night  and  day,  of  the  seasons  of  the  year, 
and  of  the  coming  of  life  and  of  death.  The  light  of  the  after- 
glow shone  on  it,  the  scorch  of  the  latter  summer  parched  its 
fields  and  woods,  the  snows  of  winter  lay  upon  its  hill-top  and 
gleamed  between  the  darkness  of  its  pines,  the  breath  of  the 


CHANDOS.  335 

spring  breathed  the  flower-glory  over  its  land,  and  uncurled 
the  white  spiral  blossom  of  its  arums  in  the  water-bed;  but 
through  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  through  the  Campaign  of 
Italy,  as  through  the  wars  of  the  Great  Captain,  through  the 
ravages  of  the  Cinque  Cento  as  through  the  raids  of  the  Goths 
and  the  Gauls,  the  little  woodland  nook  of  Fontane  Amorose 
remained  unaltered,  as  though  the  foot  of  Dionysus  when  it 
had  pressed  its  sward  had  bidden  its  blossoms  i^eep  an  eternal 
bloom,  and  the  Dryads  and  the  Satyrs,  driven  from  every 
other  ancient  haunt,  still  lived  beneath  the  green  fronds  of  its 
trailing  plants  and  laughed  amidst  the  bronzed  gold  of  its 
autumn  vines. 

It  was  in  the  "  mezza  notte  d'Aprile,'^  beloved  of  painters, 
hymned  of  poets,  which  makes  of  all  the  Southern  land  one 
fresh  and  laughing  garden.  Upward  yonder,  higher  still  on 
the  hills,  there  was  some  little  chillness  lingering  still,  and  the 
air  blew  keener  through  the  aisles  of  pines;  but  here,  midway 
in  the  sloping  of  rich  mossy  greensward,  deeply  sheltered  by 
its  beeches  and  chestnuts  and  by  the  slopes  of  its  fir-woods,  the 
delicious  spring  of  Italy  was  in  its  fairest,  with  the  purple 
orchid  glowing  in  the  noon,  and  the  delicate  wind-flower 
fanned  by  the  breeze,  and  the  young  buds  of  the  vine  opening 
in  the  clear  and  perfect  light.  A  few  miles  from  the  cluster- 
ing dwellings  of  Fontane  was  a  grove  of  beech-trees,  always, 
save  at  the  height  of  noon,  dark  as  twilight;  for  the  branches 
were  dense,  and  the  trees  towered  massive  and  many.  Yet  in 
the  heart  of  them  was  a  nook  fit  for  the  couch  of  a  Naiad — fit 
to  have  had  laid  down  in  it  the  fair  lifeless  limbs  of  Adonis. 
In  the  shade  of  the  leaves  the  moss  and  grass  were  ever  fi-esh; 
the  sun-tan  of  midsummer  never  brought  drought  there; 
anemones  and  violets,  and  all  wild  flowers  that  bloom  in  Tus- 
can woods,  filled  it  with  odor  and  color,  and  through  it  welled 
the  bright  clear  water  of  a  broken  fountain,  so  old  that  under-, 
ncath  its  moss  might  still  be  traced  the  half-effaced  Latin  in- 
scription. By  it  perhaps  Virgil  once  had  leaned,  or  Claudian 
rhymed  his  epic;  at  its  spring  the  beautiful  evil  lips  of  Au- 
tonina  might  have  drunk,  or,  lying  beside  them,  Lucretius 
might  have  thought  of  the  Etrurian  shades,  looking  far  down 
into  those  deep,  rayless  aisles  of  beech,  sublime  and  sad  as  his 
own  genius.  Where  the  water  rippled,  losing  itself  among  the 
mosses  and  the  orchids,  a  glory  of  sunlight  came,  touching  to 
silver  the  wing  of  a  wood-pigeon  poised  to  drink,  lending  a 
warmer  blush  to  the  white  wild  rose  as  the  rifling  bee  hummed 
far  down  in  its  violated  chalice,  and  shedding  its  ripe  gold  on 
the  hair  of  a  young  girl  leaning  motionless  there;. 


336  CHANDOS. 

The  birds^  fearless  of  her  presence,  paused  in  their  flight  to 
glance  at  her;  the  nightingales,  thinking  it  night  in  the  beech- 
sliadows  yonder,  sung  her  their  softest  songs;  the  butterflies 
alighted  on  the  flowers  her  hands  held;  they  knew  her  well, 
they  loved  her;  they  were  her  only  playmates  in  the  long  Ital- 
ian da}^  Arum-lilies  and  the  pale-green  blossoms  of  ivy,  and 
anemones  glowing  crimson,  and  the  emerald  coils  of  moss, 
were  in  a  loose  sheaf  on  her  lap;  she  sat  in  a  day-dream, 
watching  the  mystical  flow  of  the  water  as  though  its  patient 
music  could  sing  her  the  hymn  of  her  future. 

She  was  very  young,  but  on  her  beauty  was  the  Tuscan 
glow;  and  she  had  already  the  tall,  slender,  yielding,  voluptu- 
ous form  of  the  South.  In  the  hair,  like  a  chestnut  that  has 
the  fleck  of  the  sunlight  upon  it,  in  the  deep  eyes  with  their 
blue-black  luster  and  their  dreamy  passionate  lids,  in  the  lips 
80  soft,  so  proud,  so  mournful,  in  the  brow,  broad  and  thought- 
ful like  an  antique,  in  the  brilliance  and  the  light  upon  the 
face,  were  all  the  Southern  types:  it  was  only  in  the  fairness 
of  the  skin  that  something  Northern  might  have  been  fancied; 
in  all  else  it  was  the  rich  and  sunlit  loveliness  of  Italy. 

Her  hand  rested  on  the  stone  that  bore  the  Latin  words,  all 
covered  now  with  the  wild  growth  of  ivy;  her  gaze  rested  on 
the  water  sparkling  so  bright  in  sunshine  here,  flowing  so  dark 
beneath  the  grasses  there;  the  sheaf  of  woodland  wealth  rested 
listlessly  on  her  lap.  She  leaned  there,  in  her  childhood's 
carelessness,  in  the  classic  solitude,  against  the  blnck  shades  of 
the  beech-woods  that  closed  her  in  as  in  a  temple,  and  only  let 
the  flood  of  sun  pour  down  across  the  ruined  Koman  fountain 
and  the  countless  flowers  at  her  feet. 

She  was  fair  as  Sappho  while  yet  love  was  unknown  and  a 
child's  laughter  amid  the  roses  of  Ionia  was  only  hushed  now 
and  then  by  vague  and  prescient  dreams;  she  was  fair  as 
Heloise  while  yet  only  the  grand  serenity  of  the  Greek  scroll 
lay  opened  before  her  eyes  and  no  voice  beside  her  had  taught 
a  lore  more  fatal  and  a  mystery  more  mournful  than  the  wise 
words  of  Hellas. 

She  was  very  lovely,  motionless  here  where  no  sound  came 
except  the  lulling  of  the  water  and  the  gliding  noise  of  a  bird's 
wing,  where  tne  tender  green  of  blossoming  vines  hung  coiled 
above  her  head,  and  where  the  deep  bronze  of  the  beech-belt 
drew  round  her  the  gloom  of  the  night. 

Where  she  leaned  thue,  one  passing  through  the  denseness 
of  that  gloom  saw  her,  unseen  himself,  and  paused;  he  thought 
of  Proserpine  among  the  flowers  ere  the  cruelty  of  fate  fell  on 
her.     The  young  life  and  the  grass-grown  ruin,  the  aisle  of 


CHANDOS.  337 

color  and  sunlight,  and  the  mass  of  inclosing  shade  were  a  pict- 
ure and  a  poem  in  one — the  gladness  of  a  Greek  idyl,  with  the 
mystic  darkness  of  a  Northern  Saga. 

Once  he  would  have  lingered  there,  drawn  the  ivy-wreaths 
from  the  hands,  wooed  tiie  eyes  from  their  musing  gaze, 
paused  beside  her  in  the  leafy  peace — once,  in  the  days  of  his 
youth.  Now  he  looked  an  instant,  thought  how  fair  she  was, 
and  passed  onward  down  his  lonely  path  far  into  the  becchen 
shadows. 


CHAPTER  11. 

CASTA  LIA. 

Suddenly,  without  a  warning,  the  radiance  of  the  late  day 
clouded,  the  stormy  cirri  whirled  together  in  angry  turbulent 
masses,  the  clouds  swept  up  with  instantaneous  movement, 
like  the  ranks  of  an  army  hurrying  to  battle;  one  of  the  tem- 
pests of  the  South  broke  over  the  spring- tide  peace  of  hill  and 
valley — rainless,  furious,  driving  down  the  hill-sides,  flashing 
in  flame  through  the  depths  of  the  woods,  rending  off  the 
shoots  of  the  vine  and  the  buds  of  the  olive,  blinding  the  trem- 
bling cattle,  breaking  the  fast-rooted  pines  like  reeds,  rolling 
its  thunder  down  the  mountain  and  over  the  plain  till  the 
earth  shook  and  the  end  of  the  world  seemed  come  to  the  peas- 
ants crouching  beneath  their  roofs,  well  used  though  they  were 
to  the  sweep  of  the  hurricane,  to  the  blaze  of  the  skies.  Be- 
fore the  mules  could  patter  along  the  stony  roads,  before  the 
contadine  could  reach  homeward  as  they  came  from  antique 
Pelago,  before  the  workers  could  leave  the  olive-fields  and  vine- 
yards, before  the  mild-eyed  oxen  of  the  Apennine  could  be 
driven  through  the  rank  hill-grass,  without  warning,  the 
mighty  clouds  gathered,  the  night  fell,  the  fires  i-an  down  the 
heavens,  the  storm  broke! 

Through  it,  as  best  he  might,  ho  who  had  an  hour  or  two 
before  passed  through  the  moss-grown  path  of  the  beech-woods 
made  his  backward  way.  He  had  seen  it  gather  as  he  crossed 
the  broad  stretch  where  the  cross  stands,  and  the  view  of  the 
Val  d'Arno  lies  unfolded  in  all  its  beauty;  but  before  he  could 
retrace  many  steps  of  his  road,  the  full  force  of  the  tempest 
was  down.  It  was  now  j)eril  to  life  and  limb  to  be  out  in  its 
fury;  the  melon-plants  were  torn  up  by  their  roots,  the  twist- 
ed olives  writhed  into  tenfold  contortion,  the  peaceful  bubbling 
waters  turned  into  angry  torrents,  the  young  trees  were  up- 
rooted and  hurled  down  the  steep  descents;  the  darkness  v/as 


338  CHANDOS. 

impenetrable,  except  when  the  lightning  lit  the  whole  land  in. 
its  glare,  and  the  rushing  of  stones  and  of  boughs  and  of  sap- 
lings, as  the  winds  tore  them  up  and  whirled  them  on  its  blast, 
roared  with  a  thunder  only  drowned  in  the  peals  that  shook 
from  hill  to  hill  and  echoed  through  the  solitudes  of  the 
forests. 

He  could  not  even  tell  his  road;  he  had  lost  its  certainty  in 
the  blackness  around;  the  woodland  paths  were  all  so  similar, 
the  tracks  ran  all  so  much  alike  under  the  pines,  and  stretching 
toward  Valombrosa,  that  he  told  with  difficulty  how  near  or 
how  far  he  was  from  the  refuge  of  Fontane  A  morose,  or  from 
the  shelter  of  his  own  house-roof.  All  that  he  could  do  was 
to  retain  his  footing  against  the  fury  of  the  hurricane,  and  to 
make  head  as  best  he  might  against  the  force  that  drove  him 
back  at  every  step,  and  the  deafening  din  that  rioted  around. 
Unknown  to  himself,  he  had  wandered  back  once  more  into 
the  beech-glades,  and  was  lost  in  their  impenetrable  shades, 
instead  of  holding  on  his  upward  road  along  the  hill-side 
through  the  pines.  As  he  went,  feeling  his  way  slowly  through 
the  dense  hot  gloom  that  was  like  the  gloom  over  earth  and 
sky  when  the  lava-torrent  of  Vesuvius  bursts,  he  trod  on  some 
fallen  thing  that  his  foot  crushed  ere  he  felt  it.  He  stopped 
and  stooped  to  it;  he  thought  it  might  be  some  frightened  hare 
or  some  large  bird  struck  in  the  storm  and  entangled  in  the 
yielding,  clinging  moss.  The  darkness  was  dark  as  that  of  a 
moonless  midnight;  he  had  no  sense  to  guide  him  but  the 
sense  of  touch.  The  grasses  and  the  flowers,  all  bruised  and 
beaten,  met  his  hand;  then,  as  it  moved  further,  it  wandered 
to  the  loose  trail  of  some  floating  hair,  and  passed  over  the 
warmth  of  human  lips  and  the  outline  of  a  woman's  cheek 
and  bosom.  He  thought  of  the  Tuscan  child  whom  he  had 
seen  in  the  sunset  light. 

The  heavy  tresses  lay  in  his  hand;  he  could  not  tell  whether 
she  were  living  or  dead;  she  was  so  still  in  the  darkness,  fie 
passes  his  hand  gently  over  her  brow,  she  did  not  move;  he 
spoke,  she  did  not  hear;  he  drew  her  loosened  dress  over  her 
uncovered  chest,  she  did  not  feel  his  touch  There  was 
warmth  from  the  lips  on  his  palm,  there  was  a  faint  pulsation 
in  the  heart  as  he  sought  for  its  throb;  that  was  all.  Else 
she  lay,  as  one  dead,  at  his  feet  in  the  blackness  of  the  driving 
storm,  in  the  din  of  the  echoing  thunder. 

The  fire  flashed  from  the  cleft  skies;  the  blaze  of  an  in- 
tolerable light  poured  down.  In  it  he  saw  her  features,  and 
the  broken  stone  of  the  Latin  ruins,  with  the  water  gliding 
into  its  deep,  still  pool.     She  was  stretched  senseless  on  the 


CHANDOS.  33S 

very  grasses  amidst  which  she  had  leaned  in  her  summer 
dream;  her  eyes  were  closed,  and  her  breathing  was  so  low,  so 
lingering,  that  it  seemed  each  breath  might  be  the  last  she 
drew.  He  paused  a  moment,  leaning  over  her  with  the  thick 
wealth  of  tlie  hair  lying  in  his  hand;  he  could  not  leave  her, 
and  succor  there  was  none.  With  little  thought,  save  such  an 
impulse  of  pity  as  that  in  which  a  man  might  raise  a  fawn  his 
shot  had  struck,  or  a  song-bird  his  foot  had  trodden  on,  he 
stooped  and  raised  her  in  his  arms.  Her  head  fell  back,  her 
limbs  were  powerless,  she  lay  passive  and  unconscious  in  his 
hold;  forsaken  here,  she  must  perish;  death  was  abroad  in 
every  blast,  in  every  flash.  He  hesitated  no  more,  but  leaned 
her  brow  against  his  breast,  and,  thus  weighted,  went  on  his 
toilsome  and  iierilous  way  through  the  beech-glades.  He 
knew  his  road  now;  that  was  much;  and  he  was  not  very  far 
from  his  own  home.  He  forced  his  passage  slowly  and  with 
difficulty  through  the  denseness  of  the  woods.  It  was  a  tedious 
and  dangerous  toil;  her  long  hair  blew  in  his  eyes,  her  burden 
chained  his  arms,  the  great  blasts  blew  against  him  with  the 
blow  of  a  sea-wave;  the  forest  now  was  sunk  in  the  ink-black 
gloom  of  night,  now  alive  with  lurid  points  of  flame;  his  sight 
was  blinded,  and  his  strength  sorely  spent.  But  still  as  he 
went  he  sheltered  her,  and  he  pierced  his  road  at  length 
through  the  aisles  of  the  beech-wilderness  till  he  came  into  the 
broken  arches  of  what  had  once  been  stately  Eoman  courts. 
So  far  near  his  refuge,  he  paused  a  second  to  take  rest;  the 
vivid  lightnings  filled  the  arcade  with  their  glow,  the  peal  of 
the  storm  rolled  above;  he  leaned  against  a  marble  shaft  and 
looked  down  on  his  burden.  Her  head  rested  on  his  breast  as 
peacefully  as  though  she  slept  uj^on  her  mother's  heart;  the 
long  dark  lashes  swept  her  cheek;  her  lips  were  slightly  parted 
with  a  warmer  breath.  There  was  a  touching  sanctity  in  the 
unconscious  rest,  a  plaintive  appeal  in  the  extreme  youth  and 
in  its  death-like  calm. 

"  Poor  child!"  he  thought,  '*  she  may  live  to  wish  she  had 
been  abandoned  there  to  die  in  the  peace  of  her  childhood.'" 

In  other  years  his  lips  would  have  called  back  the  sleeping 
life  with  a  caress;  now  he  looked  on  her  with  a  passionless 
jiity,  gentle  because  profoundly  sad,  sad  because  she  had  so 
much  youth,  and  that  youth  was  a  woman's. 

Then  he  went  onward  through  the  shattered  arches  that 
were  canopied  and  covered  with  impenetrable  ivy  and  feathery 
grasses  tinted  to  every  hue  in  the  flashings  of  the  light,  and 
entered  by  a  low  side-door  the  first  court  of  a  Latin  villa  half 
in  ruins,  crossed  the  court,  and  passed  into  the  first  chamber. 

3--M  half. 


340  CHANDOS. 

It  was  long  and  lofty,  and  had  in  ifc  the  decay  of  a  patrician 
greatness;  fragments  of  a  perfect  sculpture  were  upon  the 
walls,  a  fresco  in  hues  'fair  as  though  painted  but  yesterday 
covered  the  ceiling,  the  ^^'ivement  was  of  mosaic  marbles; 
these  were  all  of  its  old  classic  glories  that  time  had  left  un- 
touched: for  the  rest,  it  was  an  artist's  studio,  a  student's 
library,  strewn  with  j^aioers  and  with  books,  with  here  and 
tliere  a  cast  or  bronze;  at  the  far  end  a  lecturn  with  a  vellum 
manuscript  open  upon  its  wings,  and  in  the  midst  an  Etruscan 
lamp  swinging  from  on  high  and  shedding  a  subdued  silvery 
light  and  a  soft  perfume  on  the  gloom.  Here  he  brought  her, 
and  laid  her  gently  down  upon  the  cushions  of  a  couch.  She 
knew  nothing  of  what  was  done  with  her.  Ho  went  to  a  flask 
of  Montepulciano  standing  near,  poured  some  of  the  wine  out, 
and  touched  her  lips  with  it.  She  drank  a  little,  by  mere  in- 
stinct; the  warmth  revived  her;  her  lids  trembled,  then  un- 
closed, and  her  eyes  looked  out  with  a  dreamy,  bewildered 
sightlessness. 

"  AVhat  is  it?    Where  am  I?" 

He  bent  to  her  soothingly,  speaking  her  own  Tuscan. 

"  Have  no  fear,  my  child;  you  are  safe  now.  I  found  you 
in  the  storm,  and  brought  you  here." 

Her  glance  met  his;  consciousness  came  to  her,  the  color 
flushed  back  into  her  face;  a  shyness,  half  awe,  half  shame, 
was  on  her. 

"  You  saved  my  life,  eccellenza!     How  can  I  thank  you?" 

"  By  telling  me  you  are  unhurt." 

She  looked  at  him  with  that  awed  wistfulness,  that  earnest 
wondering  gratitude,  of  a  child. 

He  touched  the  bright  masses  of  her  hair,  moving  them 
back  from  her  brow — she  was  so  young;  he  caressed  her  with 
his  hand  as  he  would  a  wounded  bird. 

"  I  fear  you  are  in  pain.  There  is  a  bruise  on  your  temj^le; 
and  you  were  senseless  when  I  found  you.  Do  you  suifer 
now?" 

She  sighed — a  sigh  rather  of  rest  and  of  wonder  than  of 
pain. 

"Oh,  no!  not  much.  You  brought  me  from  the  forest? 
How  good!  how  merciful!" 

She  stooped  her  head  with  the  supple  grace  of  the  South, 
and  kissed  his  hand  with  the  reverent  supplication  and  thanks- 
giving of  a  young  slave  to  her  owner.  He  drew  it  from  her 
quickly. 

"  My  child,  do  not  pay  me  such  homage  for  a  mere  common 
charity.     What  creature  with  the  heart  of  a  man  could  have 


CHANDOS.  34] 

left  you  to  perish  alone?  The  blow  must  have  struck  you 
down  senseless.     Was  it  from  a  bough,  do  you  think?" 

She  shuddered  with  the  memory. 

"I  can  not  recollect.  The  storm  came  up  from  the  back 
of  the  woods  before  I  saw  or  thought  of  it;  it  burst  suddenly, 
and  as  I  went  something  struck  me  down;  whether  it  was  the 
flash  or  a  fallen  branch,  I  can  remember  nothing  since  till  I 
awoke — here." 

She  lifted  herself  a  little,  and  glanced  round  the  chamber 
with  the  startled  wonder  still  in  her  eyes,  as  of  one  who  wakes 
from  a  deep  sleep  in  a  strange  scene;  her  glance  came  back  to 
him,  and  dwelt  on  him  with  a  venerating  marvel  and  admira- 
tion: she  knew  his  face  well,  though  until  that  day  he  had 
never  seen  hers.  Her  sweeping  lashes  were  weighted  and  glis- 
tening with  tears  as  she  looked — sweet,  sudden  tears  of  an  in- 
finite gratitude  for  her  rescue,  and  to  him  by  whom  she  had 
been  saved.     She  was  very  fair  in  that  moment. 

Her  hair,  all  loosened  by  the  wind,  fell  backward  and  over 
her  shoulders,  like  a  shower  of  molten  gold;  the  warmth  of 
the  chamber,  and  the  surprise  of  her  waking  thoughts,  gave  a 
glow  like  a  wild  rose  to  her  cheeks.  Some  of  the  ivy-coils 
that  she  had  dropped  in  her  haste  to  rise  and  flee  from  the 
storm  had  caught  in  the  gay  color  and  the  white  broideries  of 
her  simple  picturesque  dress;  an  artist  would  have  given  a  year 
of  his  life  to  have  painted  her  as  she  was  then,  in  the  shadowy 
chiaro-oscuro  of  the  lamp-light,  in  the  marble  waste  of  the  far- 
stretching,  half-ruined  chamber. 

A  dim  fugitive  memory  wandered  before  him  with  the  glance 
of  her  e3^es — a  likeness  that  he  could  not  trace,  yet  that  pur- 
sued him,  rose  before  him  with  the  earnest,  haunting  beauty 
of  her  face.  Far  down  in  his  past  it  lay;  he  could  not  dis- 
inter it — he  could  not  give  it  name  or  substance — but  its 
shadow  flickered  before  him.  She  was  like  something  remem- 
bered, like  something  recovered — this  strange  young  Tuscan 
girl  whom  chance  had  thrown  across  him. 

"You  are  tired  and  exhausted;  lie  still,"  he  said,  gently, 
as  she  strove  to  rise.  "  They  shall  bring  you  food;  1  need 
some  myself;  and  in  an  hour  the  storm  may  lull,  perhaps. 
May  I  ask  who  it  is  that  my  roof  has  the  honor  to  shelter?" 

She  looked  at  him  still  with  that  wistful  wondering  homage; 
she  was  shy  with  him,  and  the  language  of  courtesy  was  un- 
familiar to  her;  it  was  very  new  to  her  to  be  addressed  so. 

He  smiled. 
^  "  What  is  your  name,  poverina?"  he  asked  her. 


342  CHANDOS. 

Her  eyelids  drooped,  the  hot  color  deepened  ia  her  face;  she 
hesitated  a  moment, 

"  They  call  me  Castalia." 

"  Castalia!— a  fair  and  classic  name!     x\nd  what  else?'' 

"  Nothing  else,  eccellenza!" 

Her  voice  was  very  low;  her  head  sunk,  the  tears  glittered 
thickly  on  the  length  of  her  lashes.  In  the  answer  she  had 
told  him  all  the  history  she  had. 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  regretful  that  he  had  pained  her; 
his  voice  was  very  tender  as  he  spoke  again. 

"  And  your  mother — is  she  living?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  deep  pity,  this  child  with  the  brill- 
iance of  Southern  suns  about  her,  and  a  fate  so  lonely  and  so 
blighted  at  the  outset. 

He  asked  her  no  more;  but,  as  a  Tuscan  woman  answered 
his  summons  and  brought  into  the  chamber  a  tray  of  fruits, 
and  macaroni,  and  trutfles,  with  some  flasks  of  Italian  and 
Ithine  wines,  he  served  her  with  his  own  hands  as  assiduously, 
as  reverently,  as  any  would  serve  a  queen.  And  as  the  rest 
and  the  food  revived  her  more  and  more,  and  more  and  more 
restored  the  animation  to  her  lips,  the  luster  to  her  eyes,  she 
seemed,  in  the  antique  classic  Doric  charm  of  the  silent  cham- 
ber, like  some  gem  of  the  oJd  Venetian  masters  set  in  the 
white  coldness  of  the  marble  walls— like  some  lustrous,  gold- 
leaved,  Italian  flower  sprung  in  its  bud  from  the  gray 
solemnity,  the  sublime  decay,  of  Roman  ruins. 

He  wondered  whence  she  came  and  what  she  was— this  Tus- 
can child  with  the  grace  of  a  daughter  of  the  Autonines,  who 
was  without  a  name;  and  once  more  the  memory  which  had 
haunted  him  rose  again,  not  to  be  grasped,  but  lost  in  the 
mazy  shades  of  a  far-distant  past. 

The  storm  was  at  its  height,  there  seemed  little  chance  of 
its  abatement;  the  mighty  din  of  its  thunder  rolled  like  the 
roar  of  a  hundred  battles,  and  the  moaning  and  trembling  of 
all  the  beech  and  chestnut  woods  were  heard  on  the  stillness. 
She  shuddered  as  she  listened. 

*'  Ah!  I  should  have  been  lying  dead  in  all  that  terror  now, 
but  for  your  pity!" 

"  Do  not  think  of  it,"  he  answered,  soothinglv.  "  Let  the 
storm  rage  as  it  will,  you  are  safe  here  with  me.  Tell  me, 
where  is  it  you  live?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  an  intense  sadness,  very  strange 
upon  the  glow  and  glory  of  her  youth;  and,  though  the  flush 
grew  hotter  in  her  face,  it  was  proud  and  still  in  its  pain. 


CHANDOS.  343 

*'  Illustrissimo/'  she  said,  softly,  for  there  was  a  breathless 
awe  of  him  upon  her,  mingled  touchingly  with  a  spaniel-like 
trust,  "  you  ought  to  know  whom  your  house  shelters;  it  is  only 
just.  I  have  no  name;  I  have  no  history.  My  mother  died 
when  I  was  a  few  months  old;  she  came  a  stranger,  and  the 
village  knew  nothing  of  her,  only  this — she  was  not  wedded. 
The  Padre  Giulio  and  his  mother  adopted  me;  they  have  been 
very  good.  The  name  they  found  on  me  was  Castalia.  1 
have  nothing  more  to  tell.'' 

The  simplicity  of  the  words  lent  them  but  the  deeper  sad- 
ness; the  restrained  pain,  the  half-haughty,  half-appealing 
shame  with  which  she  spoke  them  gave  them  but  the  stronger 
pathos.     They  touched  her  listener  greatly. 

"  Thank  you  for  your  confidence,  my  fair  child,"  he  an- 
swered her,  with  a  pitying  tenderness  in  his  voice — she  was  so 
young  to  be  already  touched  with  life's  suffering  and  the 
world's  reproach.  "  You  do  not  know  your  history;  there  is 
room,  then,  to  hope  it  a  bright  one." 
She  shook  her  head. 

"  Illustrissimo,  how?  It  began  in  shame;  it  will  end  in  a 
convent." 

"  A  convent?     Better  the  tomb!" 

He  spoke  on  an  impulse.  To  cage  her  to  that  living  death 
of  the  veil  seemed  barbarous  as  to  shut  away  in  darkness,  till 
it  died,  one  of  the  golden-winged  orioles  that  fluttered  through 
the  length  of  a  spring  day  below  the  slopes  of  Valombrosa. 

"  Yes!  better  a  thousand  times!"  she  answered  him,  with  a 
sudden  vibration  of  passion  that  told  how  surely  passion  would 
wake  in  her  one  day.  "  In  the  grave  one  sleeps  unconscious! 
But,  forgive  me,  eccellenza;  I  weary  you.     Let  me  go." 

"  Go!  with  the  storm  at  that  height?  You  would  go  to 
your  destruction.  No  living  thing  could  pass  from  here  to 
Fontane  in  such  a  night.  Wait  awhile;  it  may  lull  presently. 
And  give  me  no  titles  of  deference;  I  can  claim  none." 

She  looked  at  him  wistfully,  with  a  sliy  surprise,  like  that 
with  which  a  forest-bird  glances  at  a  stranger. 

"  You  must  be  a  great  lord?"  she  said,  softly  and  hesitat- 
ingly- 

He  smiled,  something  wearily. 

"  My  greatness— if  I  ever  truly  had  any — departed  from  me 
long  ago.  I  am  no  noble.  I  am  little  richer  than  your  peas- 
ants of  Fontane." 

She  glanced  round  the  chamber;  to  her,  after  the  bare  sim- 
plicity of  the  Fontane  hamlet,  the  frescoes,  the  sculpture,  the 
mosaics,  though  they  were  but  the  relics  of  Latin  ruins,  mads 


344  CHANDOS. 

it  seem  a  palace;  then  her  glistening  meditative  eyes — eye^ 
divine  of  the  South — dwelt  on  him. 

"^  You  are  lord  of  yourself,  at  least:"  she  said,  lingeringly, 
with  the  naif  expression  of  a  cliild. 

"  I  have  but  a  rebellious  subject,  then,''  he  answered,  with 
a  tinge  of  sadness  that  did  not  escape  her.  "  But,  poverinuy 
you  look  feverish  and  tired.  I  have  been  thoughtless  for  you. 
You  must  have  been  terribly  hurt  by  that  blow,  I  fear.  Are 
you  in  pain?" 

She  smiled  at  him — a  smile  of  infinite  patience  and  sweet- 
ness, that  brought  back  in  his  thoughts  once  more  a  memory 
he  could  not  follow. 

"  Not  much:  it  is  nothmg.'' 

She  would  not  confess  that,  in  truth,  an  intolerable  pain 
ached  through  her  bruised  temples,  and  thkt  an  utter  exhaus- 
tion was  stealing  fast  upon  her. 

"  Lie  still,  then,"  he  said,  bending  over  her;  "  the  tempest 
is  at  its  worst  now.  Take  no  heed  of  me,  but  sleep  if  you  can. 
Your  eyes  are  too  heavy  and  too  hot,  and  I  have  let  you  talk 
when  you  should  have  been  at  rest." 

She  thanked  him  softly,  and  obeyed  him;  the  color  grew 
richer  in  her  cheek  at  his  touch,  but  she  offered  him  no  oppo- 
sition; she  watched  him  with  a  reverent,  wondering  homage; 
she  revered  him  already  like  a  king,  like  a  deity. 

He  had  saved  her  life,  and  he  had  brought  her  here  to  this 
mellow  light,  to  this  delicate  temple-like  chamber,  to  this 
dream,  as  it  seemed  to  her  still,  of  classic  beauty,  of  hushed 
repose,  that  had  followed  on  the  tumult  of  the  tempest  like 
an  enchantment.  She  had  passed  all  her  young  years  in  the 
chestnut-shadows  beneath  Yalombrosa,  and  she  had  far  too 
much  innocence,  far  too  much  faith,  to  think  of  harm  that 
could  be  done  her  in  this  solitude,  to  feel  antyhing  but  a  sub- 
lime, devoted  trust  in  the  stranger  who  had  saved  her  life. 
Moreover,  the  weariness  that  was  growing  on  her,  the  sleep 
that  weighed  down  her  eyelids,  the  reaction  from  the  shock 
and  peril  of  the  night,  left  her  little  sense  save  of  a  lulling 
peace  that  surrounded  her,  of  a  voice  that  soothed  her  like 
music,  of  a  wish  to  be  silent  and  still  and  keep  unbroken  this 
soft  charm. 

He  left  her,  and  went  to  the  lecturn  at  the  further  end  of 
the  room,  where  the  vellum  scroll  lay,  a  disputed  manuscript 
of  Boethius;  he  leaned  his  arms  on  the  desk,  he  bent  his  eyes 
on  the  Latin  words  of  the  last  of  the  Romans,  of  the  man 
martyred  for  too  much  truth.  On  the  wide  stone  hearth  some 
pine  logs  were  burning,  for  the  evenings  were  chilly,  thougl/ 


CHANDOS.  345 

tlie  clays  were  so  warm;  the  aromatic  odor  of  the  lamp  filled 
the  room  with  a  sweet,  faint  incense;  the  shadows  were  deep 
in  all  the  further  parts  of  the  hall,  onlj^  about  the  hearth  was 
the  ruddy,  flickering  glow  of  the  pines;  all  else  was  in  gloom. 
The  roar  of  the  storm  was  almost  ceaseless,  and  the  drenching 
rains  broke  above  the  low  Latin  roof  like  a  water-spout.  He 
iieeded  them  little;  his  thoughts  were  going  back  into  the 
studies  that  filled  his  days  and  nights.  She  heeded  them  no 
more;  an  irresistible  exhaustion  had  weighted  her  eyes,  till 
they  closed  unconsciously;  she  lost  all  knowledge  of  where  she 
was,  and  slept. 

The  hours  passed;  he  almost  forgot  that  he  was  not  wholly 
alone.  The  volumes  about  him  were  many,  and  rare,  and  old; 
the  classic  treasures  of  dead  empires  and  buried  freedom  were 
before  him;  their  eternal  charm,  so  old  yet  so  vernal,  their 
thoughts,  so  familiar,  so  long  known,  yet  never  souoded,  as  it 
seemed,  in  all  their  depths,  enchained  him  in  their  compen- 
sative beauty.  He  was  such  a  scholar  as  the  world  lost  of  late 
years  at  Damascus,  when  Henry  Buckle  died  of  fever,  with 
those  last  words  of  love  for  his  labor  on  his  lips:  ''  My  book! 
my  book!'' 

The  hours  passed  uncounted;  the  thunder  had  somewhat 
lulled,  but  the  winds  were  a  hurricane,  and  the  drenching 
downpour  of  rain  scoured  the  laud  and  howled  through  the 
pine  and  the  beech  woods.  It  was  a  night  which  broke  the 
mountain  firs  like  saplings,  and  wrenched  up  the  gray  writhing 
olives  by  the  roots,  and  laid  the  young  birds  stone  dead  by  the 
score.  iSio  human  thiug  could  venture  out  in  it  and  be  sure 
of  life.  The  twelfth  hour  struck  from  the  campanile  as  the  lull 
of  a  moment  succeeded  to  the  roar  of  the  storm;  he  lifted  his 
head  from  where  he  bent  over  the  lecturn,  and  looked  at  the 
young  companion  chance  had  so  strangely  brought  there.  In 
the  glow  of  the  embers  she  lay,  in  her  delicate,  richly  hued 
beauty,  a  child  in  her  innocence  and  her  tranquil  rest,  far 
more  than  a  child  in  her  grace  and  her  charm — a  thing  of 
light,  and  life,  and  color,  and  youth,  in  the  cold,  classic  solitude 
of  the  lonely  and  half-ruined  hall,  whose  cracked  mosaic  had 
been  worn  by  the  passing  of  so  many  banished  feet  that  had 
trodden  through  their  brief  day  and  had  glided  onward  down 
into  their  tombs.  He  watched  her  with  an  indefinable  pity, 
with  a  fugitive,  intangible  remembrance  pursuing  him;  her 
brief  story  was  so  mournful,  and  the  memory  that  pursued 
him  was  so  strong,  though  he  could  find  it  no  clew  and  would 
give  it  no  substance.  As  a  chord  of  music,  as  a  flower  bloom- 
ing in  a  desert  place,  as  a  sound  of  harvest-chant  or  spring- 


346  CHANDOS. 

bird's  singing,  will  bear  us  back  to  long-gone  hours,  so  the 
sight  of  her  bore  his  thoughts  backward  to  years  that  were 
sealed  forever — thoughts  that  thronged  on  him,  many,  and 
imbifctered  by  their  own  dead  sweetness,  as  the  thought  of  all 
that  he  will  never  again  see  comes  on  the  exile  with  the  mere 
scent  of  faded  leaves  brought  to  him  from  the  summer  wood- 
lands that  hear  his  step  no  more. 

In  them  he  was  lost,  as  he  leaned  against  the  broad  bronze 
wings  of  the  lecturn-eagle,  with  his  eyes  on  the  ring  of  ruddy 
color  that  circled  her  like  a  halo.  The  storm  shook  above  the 
low,  flat  roof  of  the  Latin  villa,  breaking  on  it  as  with  the 
force  of  a  water-spout.  He  roused  himself  and  went  near 
her. 

*'  She  can  not  go  out  in  such  a  night  as  this,'"  he  thought. 

She  slept  still,  softly  as  a  child,  the  long  black  fringes  of 
her  eyelashes  lying  on  her  flushed  cheeks,  a  proud,  resigned 
sadness  lilie  the  memory  of  her  stained  birth  and  lonely  fate, 
on  her  face,  lie  was  loath  to  break  her  rest,  yet  he  knew 
that  to  let  her  sleep  on  here  would  be  to  let  the  coarse  tongues 
of  the  mountain-peasants  touch  even  her  defenseless  child- 
hood. He  stooped  and  passed  his  hand  lightly  over  her  brow. 
At  the  touch,  slight  as  it  was,  she  wakened  instantly;  the  blue- 
black  luster  of  her  eyes  startled  into  consciousness,  the  flush 
on  her  cheek  bright  as  the  scarlet  japonica-blossoms.  She 
started  up,  ashamed. 

"  Oh,  eccellenza,  forgive  me! — I  have  been  asleepi" 

He  smiled  kindly  at  her  alarm  and  her  penitence. 

"  Naturally,  after  your  danger  and  your  fatigue.  It  was 
the  best  restorative  you  could  have.  It  is  midnight  now,  and 
the  storm  is  scarce  lessened — " 

"  Midnight?"  she  murmured,  terror-stricken.  "  The  Padre 
Giulio  will  be  so  wretched!  What  will  he  think?  Let  me  go; 
pray  let  me  go.'' 

"  Impossible;  you  would  go  to  your  certain  death.  I  could 
not  venture  myself  in  such  a  night;  you  hear  the  hurricane? 
You  must  remain  with  me.'' 

"  With  you?"  she  repeated,  under  her  breath. 

"  Surely:  I  would  not  let  a  dog  leave  my  roof  in  such 
weather  as  this  is.  Besides,  you  are  miles  higher  on  the  slope 
here  than  Fontane;  the  return  to  the  village  would  be  impossi- 
ble for  those  far  hardier  than  you." 

She  looked  at  him  witli  a  wondering  awe;  he  seemed  to  her 
such  an  emperor  as  Marcus  Antoninus,  who  had  laid  down  his 
pomp  and  come  to  dwell  awhile  like  other  men.     The  deep- 


CHANDOS.  34'? 

blue,  weary,  brilliant  eyes  that  gazed  on  her  made  her  think 
of  the  serene,  imperial  eyes  of  Augustus. 

"  I  am  a  total  stranger  to  you,  it  is  true,"  he  said,  gently, 
misinterpi'eting  her  silence;  "  but  you  are  not  afraid  to  remain 
in  my  house?  I  am  only  here  for  a  villegiatura,  and  the  place 
is  desolate  enough,  but  it  will  at  least  give  you  shelter.'' 

She  lifted  her  head  with  the  proud  grace  that  would  have 
paled  and  shamed  the  grace  of  many  royal  women. 

"Afraid?  Afraid  of  ;yo?f  ?  What  could  I  fear?  You  saved 
my  life;  it  is  yours  to  command.  All  is — I  can  not  thank 
you  enough." 

The  words  were  very  touching  in  their  liquid  Tuscan,  in 
their  complete  innocence,  and  in  their  perfect  trust. 

"  You  have  nothing  to  thank  me  for;  a  mule-driver  or  a 
charcoal-burner  must  have  done  for  you  what  I  did,"  he  an- 
swered her,  his  voice  unconsciously  softening.  "  And  now  go 
to  rest;  you  want  it.  I  will  send  the  women  to  you,  and  they 
shall  remain  in  your  chamber;  for  you  are  not  well  enough  to 
be  left  alone." 

"  Ah,  eccellenza,  how  good  you  are!"  she  murmured.  A 
few  years  older,  and  she  would  have  been  grateful  to  him  in 
silence,  better  knowing  the  motive  of  his  words.  "  But  indeed 
I  am  strong  now;  we,  below  Valombrosa,  have  the  strength 
of  the  mountain-air,  and — shall  I  not  trouble  you  with  staying 
here?" 

"  Ear  from  it;  you  bring  your  own  welcome,  like  the  birds 
that  come  and  sing  under  our  windows.  Good-night,  foverinay 
and  sleep  well." 

He  held  his  hand  out  to  her;  she  was  but  a  child  to  him, 
and  a  child  who  had  been  sheltered  on  his  breast  through  the 
driving  of  the  storm.  She  stooped  with  the  exquisite  softness 
of  movement  of  Southern  women,  and  touched  the  hand  he 
gave  her,  lightly  and  reverently,  willi  her  lips. 

"  I  would  thank  you,  eccellenza,  but  I  can  not." 

She  did  thank  him,  however,  better  than  by  all  words,  with 
that  hesitating  touch  of  her  young  lips,  with  that  upward 
glance  of  her  eyes,  languid  with  sleep  and  fatigue,  yet  lustrous 
as  the  Tuscan  skies  by  night — eyes  that  seemed  to  him  to  have 
some  story  of  his  past  in  their  depths. 

Then  he  summoned  the  women  to  her,  peasants  who  dwelt 
in  the  villa,  and  slie  left  him. 

He,  having  surrendered  to  her,  though  she  knew  nothing  of 
it,  the  only  habitable  chamber  that  the  half-ruined  villa 
afforded,  stretched  himself  in  the  warmth  of  the  pine  logs  on 
the  wolf -skins  strewn  before  it,    She  had  brought  back  to  him. 


348  CHANDOS. 

why  or  whence  he  could  not  tell,  memories  that  he  would 
willingly  let  die — memories  tliat,  through  the  length  of  weary 
years,  burned  still  into  his  heart  with  unutterable  longing, 
with  intolerable  pain. 

In  tlie  loneliness  of  the  old  classic  hall,  in  the  leaping  light 
of  the  pine  flames,  throngs  of  shadowy  shapes  arose  around 
him — the  shapes  of  his  past,  summoned  by  tlie  light  of  a 
child's  smile. 

She  meanwhile  lay  wakeful,  yet  dreamy,  gazing  out  at  the 
unfamiliar  chamber  and  the  swaying  figure  of  the  peasant- 
woman  keejDing  watch  over  her  and  nodding  in  her  sleep.  Her 
thoughts  were  steejDed  in  all  the  wonders  of  legendary  lore, 
and  she  fancied  some  enchantment  had  been  wrought  in  her 
since,  out  of  that  awful  forest-darkness,  she  had  been  brought 
to  this  charmed  stillness  in  which  only  one  remembrance  was 
with  her,  the  remembrance  of  the  musing,  lustrous,  weary  eyes 
that  had  looked  so  gently  on  her,  of  the  voice  that  had  soothed 
her  terror  and  her  pain  with  an  accent  softer  than  she  had 
ever  heard.  She  thought  of  him,  and  thought,  as  one  other 
had  once  done  before,  that  he  was  like  the  Poet-king  of  Israel, 
but  having  known  the  bitterness  of  abdication,  having  known 
the  ingratitude  of  the  people.  Then  her  musing  became  a 
dream,  and,  with  a  smile  upon  her  lips,  she  slept  under  a 
stranger's  roof  till  the  tempest  had  passed  away  and  the  dawn 
was  bright.  As  she  awoke,  the  morning  had  risen.  The  sun 
broke  in  full  glory  over  a  splendid  mass  of  purple  cloud  and 
tumbled  storm-mist  that  glowed  in  magnificent  color  beneath 
the  newly  risen  rays.  The  earth  laughed  again  even  amidst 
her  ruin — her  ruin  of  crushed  olive-buds,  and  uprooted  sap- 
lings, and  trees  rent  asunder,  and  nests  flung  down,  with  the 
young  birds  killed,  and  the  mothers  flying  with  piteous  cries 
over  the  wreck;  but  the  wheat-sprouts  were  too  low  to  be 
harmed;  the  vines,  though  they  trailed  and  hung  helplessly 
under  the  dead  weight  of  rain-drops,  were  still  only  in  blossom; 
the  water-courses  made  the  wilder,  merrier  music,  filled  to 
overflowing,  and  laying  in  swatiies  tlie  rank  grasses  of  their 
beds;  the  mules  began  to  patter  over  the  broken  paths,  pick- 
ing their  careful  way  over  the  dislodged  bowlders  of  rocks  and 
the  deep  channels  of  brimming  brooks.  Beneath  Valombrosa 
the  morning  was  fair  and  sun-lightened  again,  deadly  though 
the  tempest  had  been  over-night,  and  rough  work  of  destruc- 
tion though  it  had  wrought.  With  the  sun  she  rnpe,  her  youth, 
like  the  youth  of  the  spring  and  the  earth,  the  brighter  for  the 
storm  and  the  danger  gone  by.  There  was  the  flush  of 
waking  childhood  and  of  past  sleep  upon  her  cheeks,  and  her 


CHAKDOS.  349 

eyes  had  the  gladness  of  a  wondering  dream  in  them,  as  she 
found  her  way,  marveling  if  she  dreamed  a  fairy-tale,  down 
some  broken  marble  steps  and  out  into  the  air. 


CHAPTER  III. 

**GIOVENTU  !  PRIMAVEEA  BELLA  VITa!" 

The  full  light  poured  into  the  open  loggia  before  the  half- 
ruined  courts  and  halls  of  the  Latin  villa.  Within,  the  one 
spacious  chamber,  with  its  frescoes  and  the  mosaics,  its  books 
and  scrolls,  was  bare  enough.  But  the  world  of  blossoming 
spring,  of  morning  mists,  of  lavish  foliage  that  opened  out 
before  it,  made  ample  amends  for  any  poverty  and  decay  of 
the  interior;  and  it  was  perfect  for  a  villegiatura,  this  deserted 
place  that  Roman  pomp  had  oncS  filled  in  Augustan  days. 

In  this  loggia,  reading,  her  host  sat— a  man  no  longer 
young,  though  as  yet  there  was  no  silver  amidst  the  fair  and 
golden  lengtli  of  his  hair;  a  man  of  a  grave  grace,  of  a  serene, 
meditative  dignity  of  look  and  of  movement  that  had  in  it 
something  that  was  very  weary,  yet  something  not  less  grand, 
not  less  royal:  he  might  have  been  a  king  in  j^urples  rather 
than  what  he  was — an  exile,  and  poor. 

The  book  was  open  upon  his  knee,  but  his  eyes  were  not 
upon  it  for  the  moment;  they  were  resting  on  the  gardens 
without — gardens  wild,  forsaken,  uncultured,  but  only  the 
more  beautiful  for  that,  witli  dark  waters  winding  under 
laurel  thickets,  and  green  cistus,  and  ilex,  and  pomegranate, 
and  Banksia  roses  growing  at  their  will,  and,  all  ivy-coiled  and 
covered,  broken  fragments  of  arches  and  statues  and  fount- 
ains. What  he  watched  in  them  was  the  passage  of  the  young 
Tuscan  flitting  through  them  with  the  freedom  of  a  chamois 
in  her  step,  and  all  the  languor  of  a  dew-laden  flower  in  her 
loveliness. 

Sixteen  years  beyond  the  Apennines  bring  womanhood; 
they  had  brought  it  to  her  in  the  loveliness  nature  had  dowered 
her  with,  but  in  all  else  she  was  young  as  a  child — she  who 
had  never  wandered  from  the  ciiestnut  shadows  in  her  vil- 
lage, who  had  but  dimly  heard  of  another  vast  world  beyond 
the  beech-woods,  who  had  known  no  friends  but  the  birds  who 
sung  to  her,  who  had  known  no  pleasures  but  to  watch  a  blue- 
warbler  shake  his  bright  wings  in  the  myrtles,  or  to  look  deep 
down  into  the  heart  of  a  passion-flower  and  build  a  thousand 
fancies  from  its  mystic  burning  hues.     She  v/as  a  child  with 


350  CHANDOS. 

the  beauty  of  a  woman;  there  could  be  no  greater  peril  for 
her. 

He  thought  so  as  he  saw  her  in  this  deserted  garden.  Art 
had  no  handhng  with  her;  the  pure  hill-air  of  Tuscany  had 
made  her  all  she  was;  aud  she  had  the  abandon  and  the  un- 
consciousness of  some  rich-plumaged  bird,  now  floating  softly 
through  the  sunlight,  now  pausing  on  the  wing,  now  alighting 
to  drop  down  in  happy  rest  in  a  couch  of  feathery  grasses. 

He  gazed  at  her  as  she  wandered  through  them,  that  ex- 
quisite ease  in  her  step  which  many  a  royal  woman  has  not, 
which  a  contadina  may  have  balancing  on  her  dark  imperial 
head  a  pannier  of  watermelons.  The  lizards  did  not  hurry 
from  her,  but  watched  her  with  curious  eyes;  the  timid  hares 
let  her  stoop  and  stroke  them;  the  old  owls  bliniiinof  in  the 
ivy  let  her  lift  her  hand  and  touch  their  crests;  the  wood- 
doves  flew  about  her  and  pecked  the  buds  from  the  boughs  she 
held  up  to  them.  She  bent  over  the  black  swelled  water,  and 
saw  her  own  reflection  laurel-crowned  as  the  branches  met 
above  her  head;  she  gathered  the  lilies  of  the  valley,  the  buds 
of  Banksia  roses,  and  the  young  green  ivy-blossoms,  and 
crowned  herself  with  them  till  the  wreath  was  too  heavy  and 
shook  all  her  glistening  hair  downward  in  a  shower  of  gold, 
like  a  picture  of  Flora.  Then,  lastly,  she  sunk  to  rest  on  a 
gray  rock  of  fallen  sculpture,  the  crown  of  flowers  still  above 
her  brow;  and  after  the  glad,  thoughtless  pastime  of  a  child, 
the  proud  and  profound  sadness  that  usually  in  repose  was  on 
her  face  succeeded  it  with  a  charm  not  the  less  great  because 
so  sudden. 

It  was  like  the  sudden  fall  of  evening  over  the  brilliance  and 
the  glow  of  her  own  Tuscan  landscape. 

As  he  saw  it,  he  left  the  loggia  and  went  toward  her.  Sho 
did  not  hear  his  step  till  he  had  approached  her  close;  then 
she  sprung  up  with  the  swiftness  of  a  fawn,  and  with  words  of 
gratitude  made  only  softer  by  the  awe  of  him  which  lent  her 
its  delicate  coyness. 

"  I  have  been  watching  you  for  the  last  half  hour,  Cas- 
talia,''  he  said,  gently.  "  I  am  glad  you  could  find  such  com- 
panions in  my  flowers  and  my  birds;  there  is  little  else  here  fit 
for  your  bright  youth." 

She  colored  under  his  gaze,  and  put  her  hands  up  hurriedly 
to  remove  the  dew-laden  wreath  of  bud  and  blossom ;  she  had 
forgotten  it  till  his  speech  brought  it  back  to  her  thoughts. 
He  put  out  his  own  hand  and  stayed  her. 

"  Not  for  worldsl  I  v,'ish  a  Titian  lived  to  paint  you!  you 
look  like  a  young  priestess  of  Flora.     But,  tell  me,  what  spell 


CHANDOS.  351 

have  you  that  tames  the  lizards,  and  stills  the  hares,  and 
brings  all  the  birds  to  your  hand?" 

She  lifted  to  him  her  musing  eloquent  eyes,  grave  as  a 
child's  when  he  pauses  to  think. 

'•'  I  do  not  know,  eccellenza,  unless — it  may  be  because  I 
love  them  so  well. " 

His  face  grew  a  shade  darker  and  yet  softer;  her  words  re- 
called the  fond  belief  of  his  own  youth. 

"  You  think  love  begets  and  secures  love?  I  thought  so 
once.  •" 

"  And  was  it  not  so?" 

"  No;  but — that  knowledge  should  not  kill  love  in  us; 
there  is  much  that  is  worth  it,  if  there  be  much  that  is  not. 
Because  a  viper  turns  and  stings  you,  it  would  be  wild  venge- 
ance to  wring  the  wood-pigeon's  neck." 

He  spoke  half  to  his  own  thoughts,  half  to  her;  she  re- 
garded him  with  a  reverent,  grateful,  wondering  gaze;  in  her 
little  beech-forest  nest  of  Fontane  she  had  never  seen  anything 
like  him.  She  who  had  known  but  one  bent  old  priest,  and 
brown,  brawny  muleteers  and  vintagers  from  whom  she  shrunk 
as  the  white  sea-swallow  shrinks  from  the  hard  beak  and  cruel 
pursuit  of  the  kestrel,  thought  almost  he  must  be  more  than 
mortal. 

"  I  ought  to  leave  you,  'lustrissimo?"  she  said,  hesitating- 
ly.    "I  have  troubled  you  so  long." 

"  Do  you  wish  to  leave  me?" 

Her  eyes  opened  more  lustrous  than  ever  in  their  surprised 
negation. 

'*  Wish?  oh,  no!" 

"Well,  do  not  leave  me  yet,  then.  Come  within,  and  let 
me  see,  though  no  Titian,  if  I  can  paint  you  with  your  crown 
of  flowers.  Your  Padre  Curato  will  feel  no  anxiety;  I  sent  a 
messenger  to  him  to  say  you  were  here." 

The  gravest  contrition  stole  over  her  face,  she  looked  peni- 
tent as  a  chidden  child. 

"  Oh,  'lustrissimo!  I  had  forgotten  him.  How  ungrate- 
ful, when  ho  is  so  good!  How  selfish  one  grows  when  one  is 
happy!" 

The  naif  confession  amused  him. 

"  Then  are  you  happy  with  mer" 

"  Eccellenza,"  she  said,  under  her  breath,  "It  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  been  happier  than  in  all  the  years  of  my  life. " 

The  reply  pleased  him.  He  had  always  loved  to  see  happi- 
ness about  him. 

"  I  am  glad  it  should  be  so.     And  do  not  believe  that  hap* 


3i)2  CHAXDOS. 

piness  makes  us  selfish;  it  is  a  treason  to  the  sweetest  gift  of 
life.  It  is  when  it  has  deserted  ns  it  grows  hard  to  keep  all 
the  better  things  in  ns  from  dying  in  the  bhght.  Men  shut 
out  happiness  from  their  schemes  for  the  world's  virtue;  they 
might  as  well  seek  to  bring  flowers  to  bloom  without  the  sun." 

He  spoke  again  rather  to  his  own  thoughts  than  to  her;  but 
she  uoderstood  him.  This  young  Tuscan  lost  amidst  the 
chestnuts  beneath  Yalombrosa,  had  in  her  the  heart  of  a 
Heloise,  the  mind  of  a  Hypatia,  though  both  were  in  their 
childhood  yet. 

"  Eccellenza,"  she  said,  hesitatingly,  "  that  is  true.  If  we 
keep  light  from  a  plant,  it  will  grow  up  warped,  ^^'hen  they 
condemn,  do  they  ever  ask  if  what  they  condemn  had  a  chance 
to  behold  the  light?  Perhaps — perhaps  if  my  mother  had 
been  happy  she  would  not  have  been  evil,  as  they  call  her?" 

The  color  burned  hotly  in  her  face,  but  her  eyes  were  raised 
in  wistful  entreaty  to  him;  it  was  but  very  vaguely  that  she 
understood  the  shame  that  she  was  made  to  feel  was  on  her 
birth,  but  very  dimly  tliat  she  comprehended  some  vast  indis- 
tinct error  wit^h  which  her  dead  mother  was  charged. 

The  question  touched  him  with  great  pity. 

''  Poverina,"  he  said,  caressingly,  "do  not  weary  your 
young  life  with  those  subtleties.  You  do  not  know  that  error 
lies  at  all  upon  your  mother^s  liistory;  who  can,  since  you  say 
that  history  is  wholly  unknown — even  tc  her  very  name?  It 
may  be  that  the  thing  the  world — your  little  woodland 
world,  at  least — blames  in  her  was  some  unrecognized  mar- 
tyrdom, some  untold  un-elfishness.  At  all  events,  be  she 
what  she  will,  yotc  are  stainless  and  blameless;  all  you  need 
seek  is  to  be  so  forever. " 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  look  of  passionate,  of  intense,  yet 
of  restrained  feeling,  which  told  him  how  well  she  would  love 
some  day,  and  how  bitterly  she  would  suffer. 

"  I  thank  you,  eccellenza,"  she  said,  her  voice  very  low, 
"  more  for  those  noble  words  than  for  the  life  that  you  saved 
rae.'^ 

The  brief  answer  was  very  eloquent — eloquent  of  her  nature 
and  of  her  gratitude.  He  said  no  more,  but  led  her  within  to 
the  old  hall,  only  fit  for  a  summer  residence  for  an  artist,  or  a 
scholar  sufficiently  content  with  its  classic  charm  and  forest 
wildness  to  bear  its  scant  accommotlation.  An  easel  stood  be- 
fore the  open  colonnade  facing  the  gardens;  he  paused  before 
it,  and  glanced  at  her.  A  lovelier  theme  never  lured  any 
painter's  brush,  with  the  fresh  crown  of  lilies  and  rose-buda 


CHANDOS.  353 

and  light-green  blossoms  of  ivy  shaking  their  dew  upon  the 
gold-flaked  shower  of  her  hair.  He  looked  at  her,  then  he 
threw  aside  the  colors  he  had  taken  up. 

"  Twenty  years  ago  I  could  have  given  your  picture  there," 
he  said,  half  wearily.  "  Now  I  have  not  the  heart  to  paint 
yon,  my  fair  child.     I  have  not  the  great  inspiration — youth." 

Twenty  years  ago  he  would  have  found  no  hour  more  be- 
gaih"ng  than  that  spring  morning  with  the  young  Tuscan, 
bringing  the  bloom  of  her  beauty  and  of  her  crown  of  flowers 
out  on  the  canvas;  now  it  only  recalled  to  him  all  he  had  lost. 
A  shadow  stole  over  her  eyes;  he  saw  it,  and  turned  back  to 
the  easel. 

"Are  you  disappointed,  poverina  ?'* 

She  looked  beseechingly  in  his  face. 

"  I  never  saw  any  paintings  except  those  in  our  little  chapel. " 

"  No?     Well,  then,  I  will  try  and  give  you  your  desire." 

He  took  the  colors  and  brushes  up  again,  and,  standing  be- 
fore the  easel,  sketched  her  as  she  leaned  against  one  of  the 
pillars  of  the  colonnade,  the  rich  glow  and  warmth  of  her 
young  face  but  the  brighter  for  the  whiteness  of  the  lilies  and 
the  deep  green  of  the  leaves  that  circled  her  hair.  He  had 
both  the  skill  and  the  habit  of  Art;  and  the  impassioned  brill- 
iance of  her  beauty,  with  the  coronal  of  blossoms  weighting  her 
forehead  with  the  Aveight  of  all  diadems,  rose  gradually  under 
his  hand  out  of  the  sea  of  brown  opaque  gloom  on  which  it  was 
painted.  The  hours  passed,  and  the  picture  grew^;  it  beguiled 
him  for  the  time  of  heavier  cares,  and  won  him  out  of  deeper 
thoughts;  yet  ever  and  again,  as  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  glanced 
at  her,  the  weariness  which  had  made  him  turn  from  the  task 
came  over  him  again.  He  thought  of  so  many  golden  hours, 
when  faces  as  fair  had  bloomed  to  fresh  life  thus  on  his  can- 
vas, and  the  glory  of  his  youth  had  been  with  him  to  lend  its 
sweetness  to  the  eyes,  and  teach  the  language  of  love  to  the 
lips,  of  those  he  painted.  The  soft  labor  only  recalled  to  him 
so  many  days  that  were  dead. 

The  noontide  was  intensely  still,  the  heat  of  the  sun  quiv- 
ered down  through  the  ojien  arches  of  the  colonnade;  the  pict- 
ure grew  clearer  and  richer  beneath  his  hand,  and  the  blos- 
soms faded  whore  they  crnwnei]  her  hair.  She  untwined  them, 
and  touched  them  mournfully. 

"  Ah,  eccellenza,  they  are  all  dying!" 

He  smiled,  not  without  sadness,  too,  though  it  was  for 
deeper  things  than  the  flowers. 

"Nevermind;  you  have  had  their  sweetness.  Be  content 
with  that.     Nothing  endures.'* 


354  CHANDOS.' 

"  But  it  is  better  never  to  have  had  them  than  to  see  them 
withered!'' 

"  I  doubt  that.  If  we  should  have  been  spared  much  pain, 
we  should  also  have  missed  much  joy/' 

His  thoughts  were  with  other  things,  though  he  spoke  still 
in  the  figure  of  the  flowers.  He  had  seen  his  own  crowns 
wither  and  fall  and  be  trodden  under  foot,  yet  he  would  not 
never  have  worn  them.  She  looked  at  him  in  silence,  rever- 
ently, wonderingly;  she  mused  on  what  his  history  could  be; 
she  thought  him  a  king  in  exile.     So,  in  a  sense,  he  was. 

There  was  an  infinite  shyness  of  him  in  her  that  gave  her 
tenfold  more  charm,  it  was  so  innocent  and  so  full  of  religious 
veneration.  He  seemed  to  her  like  the  archangels  of  her 
Church,  so  full  of  majesty,  so  full  of  pity.  She  thought  with 
him  of  all  the  grand,  serene,  lonely  lives  that  she  had  read  of 
in  the  Latin  legends. 
,  He  rose,  and  turned  the  easel  to  her. 

*'  Castalia,  do  what  even  wise  men  never  do;  see  yourself  as 
you  are.'' 

She  came  forward,  and  looked,  as  the  sun  fell  full  on  the 
work  of  a  few  hours,  and  her  countenance  changed  as  by 
magic;  a  breathless  surprise  was  on  her  lips,  a  scarlet  flush 
upon  her  cheeks,  the  light  of  an  immeasurable  admiration  and 
amaze  beamed  in  her  eyes.  She  stood. entranced  at  the  like- 
ness of  herself,  as,  with  its  diadem  of  blossoms,  it  gazed  out  at 
her  from  the  brown  shadows  of  the  background. 

"  Well?"  he  asked  her,  smihng. 

She  turned  to  him  bewildered  and  beseeching. 

"  Oh!  'lustrissimo,  can  it  be?    Am  I  as  beautiful  as  tJiat  ?" 

"  Did  the  river  and  the  fountain  never  tell  you  so  before?" 

Her  head  drooped,  the  color  in  her  cheek  deepened;  her  in- 
nocent delight  had  had  no  thought  of  vanity,  but  at  his  word', 
she  remembered  what  she  looked  on  was— herself. 

"And  yet  it  is  beautiful!"  she  murmured,  very  low,  as 
though  in  apology.     "  And  if  I  be  really  like  it — " 

"  What  then?" 

A  prouder,  more  passionate  glory  flasli^d  into  her  face;  she 
lifted  her  head  with  the  royalty  of  a  daughter  of  emperors, 
mingled  with  a  great  softness  of  regard. 

"  Then,  I  think,  if  T  could  once  see  the  great  world  I  might 
reign  there,  and  I  might  win  some  love,  and  not  be  scorned  as 
peasants  scorn  me  here.     Would  it  not  be  so,  eccellenza?" 

He  paused  a  moment;  the  words  touched  him  to  compas- 
sion.    How  little  she  knew  that  her  nameless  loveliness  woulj 


CHANDOS.  355 

only  biing  her  in  the  "  grea*".  world  "  a  sovereignty  and  a  love 
that  ^'•'ould  be  but  added  shame!     Nor  could  by  tell  her. 

*'  Woald  it  not  be  so,  eccellenza?''  she  asked  him,  eagerly 
again. 

**Yes,'*he  answered,  slowly;  "doubtless  it  would.  But 
do  not  wish  it,  if  you  be  wise.  Your  diadems  would  not  be  so 
pure  as  the  one  that  lies  withered  there;  your  brows  would 
80on  ache  under  them,  and  for  the  love — " 

"  Ah!"  sbe  said,  softly,  whilst  the  glow  faded,  and  her  eyes 
filled  with  tears  as  she  spoke  with  the  pathos  and  the  guileless- 
ness  of  a  child,  *' I  long  to  be  loved!  All  the  children  of 
Fontane  have  their  mothers,  who  look  brighter  when  they  see 
them  near;  but  I  am  all  alone.     I  have  been  alone  so  long!'* 

The  words  had  an  intense  and  touching  piteousness  in  them; 
a  harder  nature  than  her  listener's  was  would  have  been  moved 
by  them,  ilow  could  he  find  the  cruelty  to  tell  her  that  the 
chances  were  as  a  million  to  one  that  the  only  love  she  would 
ever  meet  in  this  world  beyond  the  pine  woods,  to  which  she 
vaguely  looked  as  the  redresser  of  her  wrongs,  would  be  one 
less  merciful  to  her  even  than  the  bitterness  and  lonelinesa 
which  now  visited  on  her  innocence  and  her  youth  the  un- 
proven  error  of  her  dead  mother?  Twenty  years  before  he 
would  have  heard  her  with  little  thought,  save  to  let  his  lipa 
linger  on  the  brow  whence  the  faded  ivy-buds  had  fallen,  and 
murmur  to  her  the  tenderness  which  her  unawakened  heart 
longed  for,  as  an  imprisoned  bird  longs  for  the  shelter  of  sum- 
mer leaves  and  the  whispers  of  summer  rivers;  now  such  a 
thought  as  this  was  distant  from  him  as  the  wide  unknown 
world  was  far  from  her. 

But  pity  her  he  did,  profoundly.  This  nameless,  motherless 
child,  with  her  radiant  grace  and  her  proud  instincts,  was  as 
desolate  as  any  chamois-fawn  lost  on  the  hills  and  driven  as  an 
alien  from  every  herd  with  which  it  seeks  a  refuge. 

**  You  will  have  love,  some  day,  povcrina,"  he  said,  gently, 
**  and  as  much  as  you  will;  you  will  hardly  lift  such  eyes  as 
those  to  ask  for  it  in  vain.*' 

She  sighed,  and  her  head  sunk  lower,  while  she  looked  still 
at  the  ])ainted  likeness  of  herself.  She  was  unaware  of  any 
tribute  to  her  beauty  in  his  words;  she  thought  he  meant  that 
some,  one  day,  would  pity  her. 

"  Ah,  eccellenza,'*  she  answered,  wearily,  "  where  is  the 
worth  of  love,  if  with  it  is  scorn?" 

The  thoughtless  taunts  and  the  careless  jests  which  among 
the  peasantry  had  been  cast  at  her  from  her  birth  up  as  a 
foundling — rather  in  thfl  mothers"  jealousy  of  her  face  and  the 


85^  CHAITDOS. 

children's  resentment  of  her  love  of  solitude,  than  from  any 
cruelty  or  any  real  contempt — had  sunk  deeply  into  her  nat- 
ure, rousing  rebellion  and  disdain  well-nigh  as  much  as  they 
caused  sorrow  and  a  vague  sense  of  shame. 

lie  saw  how  great  a  shipwreck  might  be  made  of  her  open« 
ing  life,  even  from  the  very  jDurest  and  loftiest  things  in  her, 
if  this  outlawry  banned  her  long — if  this  passion  of  mingled 
defiaace  and  liumiliation  were  fostered  by  neglect.  He  spoke 
on  that. 

"  Scorn!  Why  dwell  on  scorn?  It  is  unworthy  of  you.  It. 
■js  a  word  that  may  bring  a  pang  to  those  who  merit  it  by  their 
own  ill  deeds;  it  need  have  no  sting  for  any  other.  Keep 
your  life  high  and  blameless,  and  you  will  afford  to  treat  scorn 
with  scorn.'' 

She  did  not  reply  to  him  with  words,  but  she  flashed  on  him 
with  an  answering  glance  the  night-like  luster  of  her  ej'cs,  in 
an  eloquence,  in  a  comprehension,  in  a  promise,  that  accepted 
his  meaning  far  more  deeply  and  more  vividly  than  by  speech. 
He  saw  that  she  might  be  led  by  a  cord  of  silk — that  she 
would  not  be  driven  by  a  scourge. 

He  stood  a  few  moments  in  the  shadow  of  the  colonnade. 
Liter,  when  she  had  left  him,  looking  at  the  painting  that  had 
grown  out  of  the  deep,  somber  hackwork  by  the  work  of  his 
own  hand,  the  head  alojie  luminous,  from  the  veil  of  gloom 
around  it,  with  its  spiritual  radiance,  crowned  by  that  wealth 
of  flowers;  he  looked,  then  turned  it  aside  toward  the  wall,  so 
thiit  the  richness  of  color  no  longer  smiled  out  of  the  opaque 
shadows,  and  went  within  to  his  solitude.  That  face,  gazing 
out  from  the  darkness  under  the  diadem  of  woven  blossoms, 
seemed  like  the  phantom  of  his  own  dead  youth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"seigneur!  ayez  pitie." 

Kever  in  the  rich  days  of  the  Cinque  Cento,  or  the  Dandolo 
age,  when  the  cities  of  Italy  were  filled  with  pomp  and  mirth 
and  music,  when  the  mighty  palaces  were  wreathed  with  flow- 
ers that  lent  their  bright  blush  to  the  white  stone  and  glowed 
over  the  black  marbles,  when  the  dark  arches  framed  hair  like 
the  goM  arras  that  draped  the  balconies,  and  lips  ripe  as  the 
scarlet  heart  of  the  rose  that  glowed  in  their  bosom,  and  eyes 
that  sent  men  to  far  Byzantium,  or  to  the  oaths  of  the  Tem- 
plar, with  the  riot  of  burning  thoughts  which  drove  their  steel 
with  fiercer  thrust  into  the  Paynim  foe — never  among  those 


CHANDOS.  357 

"  dear  dead  women/*  whose  lost  loveliness  the  poet  mourns, 
was  any  beauty  rarer  or  more  lustrous  than  that  of  the  young 
Tuscan  who  had  grown  up  under  the  forest-shadows  below 
Valombrosa,  scarce  more  tended,  not  more  heeded,  than  one 
of  the  passion-flowers  that  bursts  into  its  glorious  bud  unseen 
by  any  eyes  above  the  broken  stone  of  some  ruined  altar  of 
Pan.  Though  her  years  were  so  few  that  the  fullness  of  her 
beauty  might  yet  be  scarcely  reached,  she  had  already  the 
splendor  of  a  Titian  picture  on  her,  the  superb  grace,  wild  aa 
a  deer,  proud  as  the  daughter  of  Ca3sars,  that  here  and  there 
still  lingers,  as  though  to  verify  tradition,  in  the  women  of 
Campagna  or  of  Apeunine. 

The  loneliness  of  her  childhood,  the  consciousness  of  a  ban 
placed  on  her,  the  haughty  instincts  which  had  wakened  in 
self-defense  against  the  shafts  of  scorn,  the  solitary  and  medi- 
tative life  which  she  hail  led,  had  lent  her  a  certain  patrician 
pride,  a  certain  thoughtful  shadow;  a  wistful  pain  sometimes 
gazed  out  of  the  depths  of  her  blue-black  eyes;  a  lofty  rebel- 
lion sometimes  broke  through  the  dreaming  gladness  of  her 
smile.  She  was  happy,  because  she  was  young,  because  she 
was  sinless,  because  she  had  the  innocence  whicli  finds  its  joy 
in  the  caress  of  a  bird,  in  the  radiance  of  a  sunset,  in  the  mere 
breath  and  conscionness  of  existence;  but  she  had  the  pang  of 
wounded  pride,  the  burden  of  a  scarce-comprehended  shame, 
and  the  vague,  bitter,  impassioned  longing  of  a  mnid  too 
ardent  and  too  daring  for  its  sphere;  and  these  gave  their  char- 
acter to  her  face,  their  hues  to  her  youth;  these  made  her  far 
more  than  a  mere  child,  however  lovely,  can  be.  She  was  like 
Hcloise  ere  her  master  had  become  her  lover,  and  while  her 
eyes,  as  they  gazed  on  the  Greek  scroll  or  the  vellum  Evan- 
geliarium,  were  brilliant  with  the  light  of  aspiration  and  dark 
with  the  thoughts  of  a  poet,  but  had  never  yet  drooped,  heavy 
with  the  languor  and  burning  wiUi  the  knowledge  of  love. 

From  the  aged  priest  she  had  learned  all  his  scholarly  lore 
that  plunged  deep  into  the  life  of  the  p^nt,  and  drank  deep  of ' 
Latin  and  Hellenic  culture;  he  had  loved  the  rugged  roads  of 
wisdom,  the  unfathomed  sea-depths  of  knowledge,  the  buried 
treasures  of  cloister  folios  and  of  crabbed  copin — she  had  loved 
them  too.  With  no  other  in  the  obscure  hill-side,  to  which 
fate  had  condemned  him,  to  give  himsympathy  or  understand- 
ing in  these  things,  the  stern  old  man  had  taken  eager  pleas- 
"re  in  steeping  with  them  the  virgin  soil  of  a  young  and  thirsty 
mnid.  In  the  bare,  gray,  narrow  chamber  of  liis  dwelling, 
with  its  single  lancet  window  through  which  crejit  the  mellow 
sunlight  from  the  cloudless  skies,  the  fair  head  of  the  child 


368  CHAN^DOfi. 

Castalia,  with  its  weight  of  burnished  tresses,  had  bent  above 
the  huge  tomes  and  the  century- worn  manuscriptum  for  hour 
on  hour,  like  Heloise  in  the  cell  of  the  canonry.  She  had  a 
passionate  love  of  those  studies;  and,  whilst  they  filled  her 
mind  with  great  and  impersonal  thoughts,  they  did  much  to 
console  her  for  her  fate,  and  much  to  enrich  her  intelligence 
far  beyond  her  years  and  her  sex.  They,  and  the  beauties  of 
the  earth  and  the  seasons,  were  her  sole  pleasures.  The 
priest's  mother,  under  whose  roof  she  lived,  was  nearly  ninety 
years,  decrepit  and  harsh,  who,  well  as  she  loved  her  found- 
ling in  her  heart,  could  be  no  aid  or  associate  to  her.  With 
the  peasantry,  the  people  who  maligned  her  unknown  parent, 
she  would  have  no  converse  in  their  flower-feasts  and  their 
vintage  celebrations.  She  lived  alone  with  the  learning  of 
dead  ages  and  the  fragrance  of  a  forest-world. 

Some,  such  an  isolation  would  have  maddened  or  ruined; 
Castalia,  with  a  singular  vividness  of  imagination,  and  a  proud 
patience  beneath  the  passionate  warmth  of  her  nation,  had  re- 
ceived through  it  a  higher  nature  than  any  other  and  happier 
life  could  have  developed. 

She  was  a  poem,  with  her  aristocracy  of  look  that  might 
have  sprung  from  some  great  race  like  the  Medici  or  the 
Medina-Sidonia,  and  with  her  slight,  sad,  all-eloquent  story, 
that  needed  no  detail  to  fill  it  up;  with  her  touching  desolation 
of  circumstance  and  of  destiny,  and  her  brilliant  youth  that  in 
its  elasticity  and  its  enthusiasm  broke  aside  all  barriers  of 
doom  and  pain,  and  found  its  careless  joy  God-given  from  a 
song-bird's  carol,  from  a  cloister-scribe's  story,  from  the  toss- 
ing of  a  sea  of  green  rushes  in  the  wind,  from  the  dreams  of 
an  outer  world,  unknown  and  glorified  in  fancy  into  paradise. 
She  was  a  poem  in  the  spring-time  of  her  life  and  in  the 
spring-time  of  the  year. 

The  smile  of  women's  eyes  had  no  beckoning  light  for  him, 
the  whisjoer  of  women's  allurement  no  sorcery  for  his  ear;  he 
had  been  a  voluptuary  in  an  earlier  time,  but  he  had  passed 
through  bitterness  and  poverty,  and  sensuous  charms  had  ceased 
to  hold  him.  Yet  there  was  enough  of  the  poet  lingering  in 
him  to  make  him  vaguely  feel  some  memories  of  youth  and 
some  tenderness  of  pity  arise  as  he  looked  on  the  bright  head 
that  he  had  painted  with  its  diadem  of  flowers,  on  the  opening 
life  that  he  had  found  in  this  beech-wood  nest.  Had  chance 
not  thrown  her  on  liim,  he  would  never  have  sought  her; 
brought  to  his  protection,  to  his  compassion,  she  won  her  way 
to  liim  in  the  spring  of  the  divine  Tuscan  year  as  some  forest- 
fawn  whom  he  should  have  found  wounded  and  beaten  in  the 


CHANDOS.  359 

Storm  might  have  come  to  his  hand  in  after-days,  and  been 
caressed  for  the  sake  of  its  j^ast  peril  and  its  present  gratitude. 

He  had  sought  the  sechision  of  the  old  Latin  villa  for  the 
isolation  which  he,  a  writer  and  a  thinker  of  whom  the  world 
spoke,  often  preferred  to  the  life  of  cities,  under  gray  Alpine 
shadows,  in  still  Danubian  woods,  by  olive-crested  Southern 
seas,  or  amidst  the  Moorish  ruins  of  a  Granadine  landscape. 
Wealth  he  had  none;  he  was  poor;  but  as  each  young  year 
awoke  in  its  renaissance,  he  liked  to  have  around  him  the  rich- 
ness of  color  and  fragrance,  the  beauty  of  the  earth's  dower, 
that  needed  no  purchase,  but  cculd  be  made  his  own  by  each 
who  loved  it  well  enough  to  understand  its  meaning. 

In  the  monastic  twilight  and  silence  of  the  old  classic  hall, 
the  painting  with  the  crown  of  flowers  glowed  brightly  nnd 
vividly,  like  a  living  thing  from  out  the  gloom;  and  with  the 
deep  studies  and  the  solitary  thoughts  which  had  heretofore 
usurped  him,  the  memory  and  the  presence  of  this  fair  child 
mingled — not  without  a  charm,  a  charm  which  had  in  it  some- 
thing of  recollection.  The  remembrance  was  fugitive,  and  he 
could  never  bring  it  clearly  before  his  knowledge;  but  it  was 
there,  and  strong  enough  to  make  him  seek  more  of  her  his- 
tory. The  search  was  futile:  there  was  no  more  to  know;  her 
mother  had  died,  mute  and  nameless,  and  whence  she  came 
there  was  no  record — there  was  not  even  a  suggestion — to  show 
or  to  hint.  One  thing  alone  was  certain;  her  mother  had  worn 
no  marriage-ring,  and  the  only  word  marked  on  the  child's 
linen  was  the  single  word  Castalia. 

The  woman  had  been  of  great  beauty,  the  peasants  said, 
though  worn  and  haggard — a  Southern  beauty,  with  eyes  that 
burned  like  flame,  and  a  terrible  wandering  look;  but  she  had 
been  utterly  exhausted  when  she  had  reached  Fontane,  and 
had  lain  almost  speechless,  until  in  the  middle  of  the  hot, 
heavy,  tempestuous  night  she  had  looked  with  a  glance  that 
lill  could  read  from  the  face  of  the  jiriest  to  the  sleeping  form 
of  the  child,  and  then  had  sighed  wearily  and  restlessly,  and 
died. 

The  blank  in  the  history  made  it  but  the  more  mournful, 
the  more  suggestive.  An  exceeding  pity  moved  in  him,  as  he 
heard,  for  the  life  ushered  in  in  such  abandoned  desolation, 
and  for  which  there  seemed  no  haven  open  save  the  cloister — 
a  fate  as  barbarous  for  her  radiant  and  impassioned  loveliness, 
which  not  even  the  melancholy  of  her  fate  could  dim,  as  to 
wring  the  glad  throat  of  a  song-bird  in  the  fidl  rush  of  its  for- 
est melody.  With  him  at  least  she  was  ha])p3^— she  who  had 
never  known  what  happiness  was,  except  such  forms  of  it  m 


360  CHAKDOS. 

the  sweetj  irrepressible  intoxication  of  the  mere  sense  of  exisb 
3nce  which  youth  gives,  and  the  jo3's  that  a  vivid  imagination 
and  a  passionate,  poetic  temperament  confer.  In  his  presence 
Bhe  was  happy,  and  he  could  not  refuse  it  to  her.  Few  days 
passed  without  his  seeing  her,  in  the  beech-grove  where  he 
had  first  glanced  at  her  by  the  broiven  fountain,  in  the  pine- 
woods  sloping  up  toward  Valombrosa,  in  the  deserted  gardens 
or  in  the  ruined  hall  of  his  own  Latin  villa.  He  had  no 
thought  in  it  save  that  of  compassion,  even  whilst  her  lustrous 
eyes  vaguely  recalled  him  his  past;  and,  in  the  untutored 
thoughts  that  had  fed  in  these  hill-solitudes  on  the  legacies  of 
the  Hellenic  schools  and  the  literature  of  the  Eenaissance,  he 
found  the  wai^ening  intellect  of  a  Corinna.  Love  had  long  been 
killed  in  him;  it  was  a  thing  of  his  youth,  never,  he  believed, 
like  that  youth,  to  revive,  and  no  touch  of  passion  mingled 
with  the  pity  she  aroused  in  him;  but  that  pity  was  infinitely 

fentle,  and  to  her  the  most  precious  mercy  that  her  life  had 
nown. 

In  her  home,  silence  and  austerity  reigned  with  the  stern 
simplicity  of  the  primitive  Church.  From  the  peasants  she 
met  with  at  best  a  good-natured  insolence  that  was  to  her  in- 
stinctively imperial  nature  worse  than  all  neglect;  from  him 
alone  she  met  with  what  ennobled  her  in  her  own  sight,  and 
filled  her  toward  him  with  a  passionate  gratitude  and  venera- 
tion that  was  only  not  love  because  no  knowledge  of  love  had 
dawned  on  her  and  because  an  absolute  submission  and  awe 
were  mingled  with  it.  To  her  he  was  the  incarnation  of  all 
sublime  lives  that  she  had  dreamed  of  over  the  histories  of 
Plutarch,  and  Tacitus,  and  Claudius,  of  Augustin,  and  Hilde- 
brand,  and  Basil;  to  her  he  was  as  an  emperor  to  his  lieges,  as 
an  archangel  to  his  devotees;  all  grand  and  gracious  things  to 
her  seemed  blended  in  him,  and  all  lofty  and  royal  lives  of 
poet,  saint,  or  king  with  which  her  memory  was  stored  seemed 
to  her  met  in  his.  It  was  not  love  that  she  bore  him;  it  was 
something  infinitely  more  unconscious  and  more  idealized:  it 
was  an  absolute  adoration. 

She  did  not  know  why  the  hours  were  a  dead  worthless  space 
unless  they  brought  her  to  his  presence,  why  the  mere  distant 
sound  of  his  voice  filled  her  heart  with  a  joy  intense  as  pain, 
why  any  suffering  he  had  bidden  her  would  have  been  sweeter 
than  any  gladness,  vvhy  the  forest-world  about  her  wore  a  light 
it  had  never  had  before;  she  did  not  know;  she  only  knew  that 
all  the  earth  seemed  changed  and  transfigured.  He  was  iiot 
blind  to  it;  it  touched  him,  it  beguiled  him,  it  pleased  him; 
it  was  very  long  since  anything  had  loved  him  and  been  tho 


CHANDOS.  361 

happier  for  his  smile;  it  was  very  long  since  these  softer, 
Blighter  things  had  come  into  his  life,  and  they  had  a  certain 
cliarni  for  him. 

There  had  been  a  time  when  all  women's  eyes  had  gained  a 
brighter  light  at  his  approach,  though  that  time  lay  far  away 
in  a  deserted  laud;  yet  in  some  faint  measure  it  revived  for 
him,  as  he  saw  the  silent  welcome,  more  eloquent  than  all 
words,  of  this  young  Tuscan's  glance;  and  to  him  she  was  but 
a  beauti+'ul  chilrl,  to  be  caressed,  without  deeper  thought. 

"  Eccellenza!"  she  said,  hesitatingly,  one  day  that  he  had 
paused  by  iier  beside  her  favorite  huunt  by  the  Roman  fount- 
ain in  the  black  belt  of  the  beech-woods,  "  you  tell  me  that  I 
have  talent;  you  say  that  my  voice,  when  I  sing  the  Latin 
chants  that  you  love  best,  is  music  the  world  would  love  too. 
Would  they  do  nothing  for  me  in  the  world?" 

That  "  world  "  was  so  vague,  so  far  off,  so  dim,  so  glorious 
to  her!  She  could  not  have  told  what  she  thought  lay  beyond 
those  chestnut-belts  that  she  had  never  passed;  but  her  ideal 
of  the  unknown  hind  was  divine  as  Dante's  of  the  City  of  God. 

He  answered  her  slowly:  he  knevv^  the  fate  to  which  her  de- 
fenseless and  nameless  beauty  v/ould  there  be  doomed;  but  he 
could  not  find  the  heart  to  break  her  fair  illusion. 

"They  might — they  would;  but  you  are  better  and  safer 
here  in  your  mountain  shelter."" 

A  quick  sigh  escaped  her. 

*'  Oh,  no!" 

"  No?  How  can  you  tell  that?  You  do  not  know  what 
would  await  you.  Be  happy  Vv'hile  you  may,  Castalia;  the 
world  would  crush  you!" 

She  looked  at  him  wistfully,  while  a  grand'er  power  and 
aspiration  than  the  mere  longing  of  a  child  for  "  fresh  fields 
and  pastures  new  "  gleamed  in  eyes  that  with  a  little  while 
would  burn  with  passion  as  they  now  glanced  with  light. 

"  It  is  only  the  weak  who  are  crushed.  They  could  not 
scorn  me  for  my  birth  and  loneliness  if  I  forced  them  to  say, 
'  See!  fate  was  harsh  to  her;  but  God  gave  her  genius  and  en- 
durance, and  she  conquered!'  " 

The  words  and  the  tone  moved  him  deeply:  the  fearless 
youth,  with  its  faith,  its  fervor,  its  courage,  its  sublime  blind- 
ness of  belief,  recalled  to  him  his  own. 

"Ah,  Castalia!"  he  answered,  gently;  "but  the  world 
loves  best  to  dwarf  God  and  to  deny  genius.  And  genius  in  a 
woman!  Cyril's  envy  stones  Hypatia,  and  casts  her  beauty  to 
the  howling  crowds." 


363  CHANDOS. 

Her  head  drooped,  but  the  look  of  resolve,  though  shadowed, 
did  not  pass  off  her  face. 

"  Perhaps!  Yet  better  Hypatia's  glory  won  with  her  death 
than  a  long,  obscure,  ignoble,  useless  life!  You  say,  be  happy 
here, 'lustrissimo:  happy!  when  all  my  future  is  the  convent?" 

It  was  a  great  terror  to  her,  that  monastic  doom  to  which 
the  priest  inexorably  condemned  her  future;  other  provision 
he  could  make  none  for  her.  She  was  so  full  of  vivid,  lux- 
uriant, abundant,  glowing  life.  Life  was  to  her  an  unread 
poem  of  such  magical  enchantment,  an  ungathered  flower  oi 
such  sorcereas-charm;  and  nothing  opened  to  her  except  that 
living  tomb! 

He  gave  an  involuntary  gesture  of  pain. 

"  God  forbid!  Some  fairer  fate  will  come  to  you  than  that. 
To  condemn  you  to  a  convent-cell!  it  would  be  as  brutal  astha 
captivity  of  Heloise." 

A  brooding  weariness  passed  over  the  beauty  of  her  face. 

"  But  Heloise  was  happier  than  I  should  be.  She  had  beet 
loved  once!" 

There  was  no  thought  in  her  as  she  spoke  save  the  longing 
for  tenderness  ever  denied  her,  and  an  •instinctive  comprehen- 
sion of  the  passion  and  the  sacrifice  of  Paraclete. 

Where  he  leaned  against  a  beech-stem  above  her,  his  hand 
touched  her  hair  lingeringly  and  tenderly,  as  it  had  done  when 
he  had  brought  her  through  the  storm — like  a  touch  to  a  flut- 
tering bird. 

"  You  would  love  like  Heloise,  Castaliar" 

She  drew  a  deep,  soft  breath;  she  was  always  awed  with  the 
despair  and  the  beauty,  half  mystic,  wholly  sublimated  to  her, 
of  that  eternal  tale. 

"  Ah!  who  would  not?  That  alone  is  love!  '  Quand  Pem- 
pereur  eut  voulu  m'honorer  du  nom  de  son  ejiouse,  j'auraia 
mieux  aimer  etre  appelee  ta  maitresse!'  " 

The  words  of  Heloise  on  her  innocent  lips,  which  uttered 
them  with  no  thought  save  of  their  devotion  and  their  fidelity 
— their  choice  of  slavery  to  her  lover  rather  than  of  imperial 
pomp  with  any  other — had  an  eloquence  and  a  temptation 
greater  than  she  knew. 

He  sighed  almost  unconsciously;  it  was  the  love  of  which  he 
ha]  dreamed  in  his  youth — dreamed,  and  never  found. 

"  Castalia!  you  make  me  wish  we  had  met  earlier!" 

The  words  escaped  him  involuntarily.  She  lifted  her  eyes 
in  wonder-  his  meaning  she  could  not  guess. 

"  Earlier,  eccellenza— why?" 

He  smiledj  he  was  glad  that  she  failed  to  understand  him. 


CHANDOS.  363 

"  No  matter!    What  is  it  you  are  reading  there?** 

She  lifted  him  the  book;  an  Italian  translation  of  an  En- 
glish romance — "  Lucrece.'* 

A  shadow,  weary  and  heavy,  came  on  his  face  as  he  glanced 
through  the  pages. 

"  You  know  it?"  she  asked  him. 

"Yes,  I  know  if 

"  I  love  it  so  well!"  she  said,  passionately.  **  It  was  left 
here  by  chance  years  ago,  by  some  travelers  going  through  to 
Valombrosa.  It  is  beautiful! — it  is  like  the  life  of  Heloise! 
It  moves  me  as  the  winds  do  when  they  make  their  music 
through  the  woods  and  seem  as  though  tliey  called  on  men  to 
cease  from  evil  and  retiember  God.'* 

The  words,  fantastic,  yet  very  eloquent  in  the  Tuscan 
tongue,  while  her  eyes  grew  humid,  and  the  color  on  her  cheek 
grew  warm  as  the  scarlet  heart  of  a  pomegranate,  were  per- 
haps the  truest  homage  the  work  had  ever  known. 

He  closed  the  book  and  gave  it  back. 

*'  Since  you  feel  it  so,  you  give  the  author  his  best  reward. " 

*'  But  you  must  think  it  great,  too?" 

*'  No;  it  is  very  imperfect.  No  one  knew  that  better  than 
be  who  wrote  it." 

"  It  is  perfect  to  me.     And  who  was  he — ^its  writer?*' 

"  You  see  his  name  there.** 

"  Yes,  his  name;  but  his  fate — '* 

"  Was,  they  say,  a  very  common  one.  It  was  the  fate  of 
Icarus,  who  thought  himself  a  winged  god  and  fell  broken  to 
earth.** 

"  lie  never  fell  ignobly,'*  she  said,  below  her  breath.  "  He 
strove  to  rise  too  high,  perhaps;  and  those  who  were  earth- 
bound  envied  him,  and  shot  him  down  as  hunters  shoot  an 
eagle;  but  whoever  wrote  that  book  would  only  gather  strength 
from  any  full." 

lie  answered  her  nothing.  A  little  later,  and  he  spoke  of 
other  things. 

The  spring  deepened  into  early  summer;  he  had  been  seven 
weeks  in  tlie  Liitii)  villa  since  the  day  he  had  found  her  in  the 
storm,  and  he  saw  her  often.  Ho  was  beguiled  with  her,  and 
the  thoughts  of  her  cultured  fancy,  all  untinged  by  the  world's 
taint  as  they  were,  hid  a  certain  charm  for  the  scholar,  not 
less  than  her  personal  loveliness  had  a  charm  for  one  who  had 
been,  as  the  world  held,  a  libertine.  But  either  passion  was  dead 
in  him,  or  her  defenselessness  lent  her  sanctity  in  his  sight: 
for  no  warmer  word  or  glance  than  that  of  a  pitying  and  pure 


3G4  CHANDOS. 

tenderness  ever  came  from  him  to  teach  her  either  his  power 
or  hers. 

She  kuew  nothing  of  his  history,  not  even  his  name;  to  the 
peasantry  he  was  simply  "  the  stranger.*'  He  was  sojourn- 
ing here  for  the  villegiatura,  and  into  his  solitude  none  had 
ventured  until  she  had  been  taken  there  by  the  hazards  of  the 
mountain  weather.  Muse  on  what  could  be  his  history  she 
often  did,  but  to  question  him  on  it  she  no  more  would  have 
thought  of  than,  in  the  old  legends  of  her  Church,  those 
whom  angels  visited  thought  of  pressing  curiously  upon  their 
reverenced  guest.  She  followed  other  words  of  Heloise,  "  En 
toi  je  ne  cherchai  que  toi,  rien  de  toi  que  toi-meme.*'  It  was 
he  who  was  the  idol  of  her  thoughts;  what  he  was,  whence  he 
came,  she  never  sought  to  know.  The  kingsliip  of  the  earth 
would  not  have  seemed  to  her  an  empire  too  superb  for  him 
to  have  forsaken.  She  would  have  believed  whatever  he 
should  have  told  her  of  himself— save  evil.  As  it  was,  he 
told  her  nothing;  and  he  spoke  her  language  andthe  dead 
Latin,  which  was  equally  familiar  to  her,  so  that  he  might  have 
been  a  Tuscan  by  birth,  or,  as  her  fancy— imaginative  to  ex- 
travagance— sometimes  could  have  almost  conceived,  have 
lived  in  those  ages  of  Augustan  Eome  or  Gracchan  Eevolution 
of  which  he  loved  best  to  converse. 

Utterly  at  his  mercy  she  was;  of  peril  to  her  from  him  she 
had  no  conception — what  he  had  commanded  she  would  have 
obeyed  implicitly;  of  her  own  danger  she  was  profoundly  igno- 
rant; and  that  he  could  have  erred  she  would  have  no  more 
beheved  than  the  simple  fanatics  of  her  native  beech-woods 
would  have  believed  in  the  error  of  the  saints  and  seraphs  to 
whom  they  prayed.  The  very  difference  in  their  years,  wide 
as  it  was,  lent  an  additional  charm  to  their  intercourse,  and 
even  an  additional  danger,  since  it  lent  it  also  an  apparent 
and  fallacious  security. 

Later  on  that  same  day,  returning  through  the  forest  above 
Fontane  to  the  ruined  villa,  where  he  lived  in  the  ascetic  sim- 
pWc'dj  of  a  man  whose  only  riches  lie  in  his  own  intellect  and 
in  the  books  that  he  can  gather  round  him,  he  saw  her  again, 
as  the  sudden  break  in  the  wall  of  leaves  and  the  sudden  de- 
scent of  the  rocky  pathway  brought  him  to  a  gray  antique 
broken  bridge  that  spanned  what  was  now  little  save  a  dried 
water-course,  orchid-filled,  with  a  narrow  glimmering  brown 
brook  under  the  flowers.  She  was  leaning  over  the  parapet, 
resting  her  arm  on  a  basket  of  fruit.  There  was  the  indolent 
reposeful  grace  of  her  Southern  blood  in  the  attitude,  but 
there  was  also  something  of  depression:  and  while  a  joyous 


JHANDOS.  365 

light  flashed  into  her  eyes,  he  saw  that  they  had  been  dim  with 
tears.     He  paused  beside  her. 

"  Casfcalia!  what  has  vexed  you?" 

"An  idle  thing,  eccellenza.'^ 

"  Nothing  is  idle  if  it  have  power  to  wound  you.    Tell  me. " 

A  proud  pain,  that  was  half  of  it  scorn  for  itself  and  half 
the  impatience  to  repay  scorn,  was  on  her  face  as  she  raised  it. 

"  It  is  my  folly  to  be  wounded!  But  as  two  condatine  passed 
me  a  while  ago,  they  thrust  out  their  lips  with  a  smile  that 
was  wicked,  aud  looked  at  me.  '  Altro!  come  la  mad  re,  cosi 
la  figlia!'  And  I  knew  that  they  meant  disdain  at  me  and  at 
her;  and  my  heart  ached  because  I  could  not  revenge.  Ee- 
venge  is  guilt,  the  Padre  Giulio  says;  it  may  be,  but  when  they 
mock  at  her  it  would  be  very  sweet  to  me." 

The  strength  of  Southern  vengeance  gleamed  for  a  moment 
over  the  softness  of  her  youth;  he  saw  how  easily  the  noble 
nature  here  might  be  driven  to  desperation  and  to  guilt.  If 
the  lash  of  scorn  fell  on  her,  it  would  never  chasten,  but  it 
would  goad  and  madden  into  rebellion,  perhaps  into  reckless- 
ness. 

*'  Poverina  !"  he  said,  caressingly,  "  evil  be  to  those  who 
cause  you  one  moment's  pain.  Does  so  much  coarseness  and 
cruelty  exist  even  in  your  jjrimitive  valley?  But  do  not  heed 
them,  Castalia;  these  women  are  beneath  your  regret;  and, 
remember,  calumny  can  only  lower  us  when  it  has  power  to 
make  us  what  it  calls  us." 

Her  glance  gave  him  eloquent  and  grateful  comprehension. 

"Oh,  'lustrissimo!  it  is  not  their  scorn  that  I  heed;  it  is 
only — I  am  afraid  that  it  may  bring  me  yours.  And  death 
would  be  more  merciful  to  me!" 

The  words  touched  him  deeply — more  deeply  than  he  showed; 
for  he  sought  to  turn  her  thoughts  from  herself,  as  he  took 
her  hands  in  his  own  aud  looked  down  into  the  splendor  of  her 
eyes. 

"  Castalia,  never  fear  that.  I  honor  you  for  what  you  are, 
my  child.  Your  mother's  error — if  error  it  were — can  never 
rest  upon  you;  and  the  world  is  often  sorely  at  fault  in  its 
judgments.  It  condones  its  thieves,  and  condemns  its  martyrs. 
Ijut  you  are  rash  to  attach  so  much  value  to  my  opinion. 
You  do  not  know  who  I  am — whence  I  come — what  my  his- 
tory may  be. " 

"  But  I  'know  you.  Had  T  sought  to  know  more,  would  you 
not  have  thought  me  unworthy  of  so  much?  The  fable  of 
Psyche  is  io  true;  where  doubt  has  ones  come,  faith  is  dis- 
honored." 


366  CHANDOS. 

He  smiled  at  the  fable  she  chose,  and  her  insight  into  hu- 
man nature. 

*'  Eight.  I  think  Eros  was  justified  in  taking  wing  and  ia 
never  returning;  bat  still  there  is  such  a  thing  as  prudence. 
How  can  you  tell  that  some  guilt  does  )iot  rest  on  me — that  I 
come  here  because  I  am  a  marked  and  disgraced  man — that  I 
may  be  utterly  unlike  all  you  believe  me?" 

She  looked  at  him  proudly  and  yet  sadly. 

"  Eccellenza,  those  who  bear  guilt  do  not  look  as  you  look; 
and,  whatever  you  be,  you  are  great." 

"No!  I  told  you  I  am  a  fallen  0£esar,  and  dropped  my 
purples  long  ago." 

"  But  his  purples  are  the  least  part  of  Caesar's  greatness." 

"  Not  in  the  world's  estimate.  Come,  let  me  see  you  home- 
ward. " 

He  raised  the  load  of  yellow  gourds  and  luscious  summer 
fruits,  glowing  amidst  leaves  and  wild  flowers,  as  he  spoke; 
she  tried  to  take  it  from  him. 

"  Oh,  illustrissimo!  do  not  do  that!  Tou  must  not  carry  a 
burden." 

"  I  have  carried  many,"  he  said,  half  with  a  smile.  She 
looked  at  him  still,  with  that  reverent,  wistful  look;  she  won- 
dered what  he  had  been. 

"  You  have?  But  they  must  have  been  the  weight  of 
royalties,  then.  Give  me  the  fruit!  Pray  do  not  take  it  for 
me!'' 

"  Castalia,  an  emperor  is  bound  to  serve  a  woman.  We 
have  that  lingering  chivalry  among  us,  at  least. " 

The  rocky  road  wound  down  under  beech-boughs,  and  over 
green  turf,  and  into  the  twilight  of  dense  woods,  till  the  aerial 
campanile  of  Fontane  rose  in  its  delicate  height  like  a  frozen 
fountain  out  of  the  nest  of  leaves.  The  Tuscan  sunset,  in  all 
its  glow,  was  just  on  earth  and  sky  as  they  entered  the  valley 
where  the  white  spire  and  the  masses  of  chestnut-wood  stood 
out  against  the  intense  blue  of  the  early  summer  heavens. 

"  Coleridge  cried,  '  Oh,  God,  how  glorious  it  is  to  live!'  " 
he  said,  rather  to  himself  than  to  her,  as  they  came  into  the 
roseate  radiance.  "  Eenan  asks,  '  Oh,  God,  when  will  it  be 
worth  while  to  live?'  In  nature  we  echo  the  poet;  in  the  world 
we  echo  the  thinker." 

The  light  was  gone,  the  twilight  fallen,  as  he  left  her  at  the 
little  chalet  where  the  charity  of  the  Church  sheltered  her. 
He  drew  her  to  him  with  an  involuntary  action  of  tenderness 

"  Castalia,  good-night!" 

Her  eyes  looked  u^  to  his  in  the   shadows  heavily  flung 


CHANDOS.  367 

around  them  by  the  bending  boughs.  The  ini5nite  beauty  of 
her  face  hal  never  been  more  fair;  almost  unconsciously, 
something  of  the  softness  of  dead  years  revived  in  him;  he 
stooped  his  head,  and  his  lips  touched  the  flushed  warmth  of 
her  cheek  in  farewelL  The  kiss  startled  her  childhood  from 
its  rest  forever;  with  it  the  knowledge  of  love  came  to  her. 

A  sudden  consciousness,  a  sudden  alarm,  quivered  through 
her;  her  heart  beat  like  a  caught  bird,  in  a  sweetness  and  joy 
that  made  her  afraid  at  their  terrible  strength  and  made  her 
tremble  before  him  as  though  criminal  with  some  great  guilt; 
she  stood  like  an  antelope  that  in  its  v/ild,  shy  grace  only 
tempts  the  hunter  the  more:  what  she  felt  had  a  strange  awe 
for  her,  and  as  strange  a  rapture.  Though  given  only  in  a 
compassionate  tenderness,  the  caress  had  taught  the  meaning 
of  passion;  her  color  burned,  her  eyes  sunk  under  his. 

At  that  instant  the  tread  of  a  heavy  step  was  heard  on  the 
silence;  she  fled  instinctively,  fleet  as  a  fawn,  into  the  deepen- 
ing shadow  of  the  arched  and  open  door;  he  turned  away  and 
went  back  up  tlie  woodland  road  to  his  own  dwelling.  Front- 
ing him,  in  a  faint  ray  of  dying  light  that  slanted  through  the 
wall  of  chestnut  and  of  cypress,  the  old  priest  stood,  his  grave, 
austere  features  rugged  as  the  riven  rock. 

"  Give  me  a  word  with  you,^^  he  said,  simply. 

He  whom  he  checked  in  his  path  locked  up  and  paused;  he 
had  scarcely  seen,  and  as  scarcely  thought  of,  the  self-appointed 
guardian  of  Castalia. 

"  A  word  with  me?    Assuredly.*^ 

The  priest  looked  at  him  with  searching  eyes,  in  which  there 
was  still  a  great  sadness  and  a  great  appeal. 

''  Whoever  you  be,"  he  said,  briefly,  "  whether  great,  as  I 
deem  by  your  bearing,  or  no,  I  speak  to  you  not  as  to  one  own- 
ing authority,  nor  as  one  holding  myself  God's  command,  but 
simply  as  man  speaks  to  man.'' 

*^Say  on." 

*'  Then  I  say,  hava  you  thought  what  it  is  you  do  now?" 
"  Do?     I  fail  to  understand  you." 

He  spoke  patiently  still;  but  there  was  a  touch  of  intoler- 
ance in  the  tone. 

"  I  will  make  my  meaning  plainer,  then,"  said  the  Italian, 
who  had  in  him  the  temper  with  which  Savonarola  upbraided 
the  Triple  Tiara  and  preached  the  ruthless  doctrine  of  re- 
nunciation.    "  Do  you  mean  to  ruin  that  young  life?" 

*' God  forbid!'; 

He  miant   it  in   utmost  sincerity,  and  surprise  was  the 


368  CIIANDOS. 

strongest  feeling  in  him  for  the  moment.  The  disavowal 
softened  the  Tuscan. 

"  Then  do  you  know  that  they  speak  evil  of  her  on  your 
score?  Do  you  know  that,  through  you,  they  say  the  shame 
of  her  mother  is  hers?" 

His  face  grew  dark. 

"  They  lie,  then — utterly!  Teach  your  flock  more  charity 
to  youth  and  innocence,  holy  father.  And  let  me  pass;  I  can 
not  wait  for  this  catechism." 

The  Tuscan  bent  his  head,  with  a  certain  dignity. 

"  I  thank  you  for  that  dbhirt,!.  7  did  not  need  it;  her  eyes 
are  too  clear  beneath  mine.  Yet  allow  me  a  few  words  more. 
You  give  her  no  love,  probably;  but  you  are  already  far  more 
her  religion  than  the  creed  I  have  taught  her  from  infancy. 
How  will  you  use  your  power  over  her?" 

He  was  silent;  his  thoughts  were  little  with  the  speaker,  he 
was  thinking  of  the  lips  that  had  trembled  beneath  his  own. 

"  You  may  lead  her  where  you  will;  I  confess  it  you!  Yon, 
a  stranger,  who  saw  her  first  but  a  few  weeks  ago,  have  a  force 
to  mold  and  sway  her  that  I  never  won — 1  who  have  reared 
her  and  succored  her  well-nigh  from  her  birth,"  said  the 
Italian,  with  a  bitterness  in  which  was  a  yearning  pain.  "  It 
maybe  that  I  have  seemed  harsh  to  her;  it  maybe  that  I  have 
missed  my  way — that,  while  I  strove  overmuch  to  shield  her 
from  her  mother's  error,  I  forgot  to  woo  her  trust  and  her 
heart — I  forgot  that  a  child,  and  a  woman-child  above  all, 
needs  love  and  needs  indulgence.  It  may  be  that  I  erred.  Be 
it  so  or  not,  you  can  command  her;  and  I  can  no  more  stay 
her  from  your  sorcery  than  I  can  check  the  winds.  Yet  you 
say  you  would  not  blight  her  life;  you  speak  as  though  you  had 
pity  on  her.  You  say  you  leave  her  innocence  sacred;  but  will 
you,  then,  rob  her  of  peace?  You  say  you  will  not  lead  her 
to  dishonor:  will  you  not  spare  her  also  the  bitterness  of  a 
knowledge  that  must  destroy  the  virginity  of  the  heart?  You 
say  the  slanderers  lie:  will  you  not,  then,  be  wholly  mercifid, 
and  leave  her  ere  she  learns  to  love  you  too  well?  You  can 
make  her  the  playthmg  of  an  hour;  but  it  mil  only  be  at  the 
price  of  her  whole  future." 

He  stood  silent  still  while  the  old  priest  spoke.  The  appeal 
surprised  him,  and  awakened  many  thoughts  that  had  never 
before  dawned  in  the  compassion  and  tenderness  he  had  felt 
to  Castalia — to  this  young  girl  who  looked  at  him  Mith  such 
jpaniel-eyea  of  love  and  brought  him  back  so  many  memories 
of  his  youth.     He  had  not  thouglit  of  cost  to  her. 

**  Your  lips  touched  hers  to-night,"  pursued  the  Tuscan. 


CHANDOS.  369 

"  The  woman  who  has  once  felt  shame  under  a  caress  has 
ah-eady  lost  half  her  purity.  You  gave  her  in  that  a  memory 
which  will  burn  into  her  heart  with  humihation  every  time 
that  she  thinks  of  you.  You  may  mean  her  no  injury  now; 
but  you  are  one  who"^has  lived  long,  doubtless,  in  the  pleasures 
of  the  world;  how  will  it  end  if  you  remain  near  her?" 

He  raised  his  eyes,  where  they  stood  in  the  early  evening 
light  falling  so  faintly  through  the  parting  in  the  barrier  of 
cypress,  and  looked  full  at  the  Italian. 

"  You  plead  with  me  for  her;  to  what  fate  do  you  condemn 
her  yourself?  The  cloister?  Have  you  ever  thought  what  it 
is  to  bury  her  in  that  tomb  which  can  not  claim  even  the 
repose  of  the  graves  of  the  dead— to  bar  her  out  from  light 
and  laughter  and  melody  and  joy— to  chain  her  loveliness 
where  no  kiss  shall  ever  meet  her  own,  no  heart  beat  on  hers, 
no  eyes  see  her  smile,  no  lover  seek  her  embrace?  Have  you 
ever  thought  what  you  will  do  when  you  seal  down  such 
luxuriant  life  as  hers  to  beat,  and  struggle,  and  desire,  and 
pine,  and  wither,  and  perish  alone?  Yours  is  the  cruelty — not 
mine!'^ 

The  Tuscan's  furrowed  cheek  grew  paler;  he  was  too  deep  a 
scholar  to  be  a  fanatical  churchman,  and  in  his  close,  stern, 
rugged  soul  he  cherished  Castalia  tenderly. 

"  I  mean  no  cruelty — Christ  knows.  But  I  have  no  other 
shelter  for  her,  and  there  at  least  she  would  have  innocence.'* 

"  Innocence  forced  and  untempted!  what  is  it  better  than 
sin?  Let  her  take  her  chance  in  the  width  of  the  world,  let 
her  even  know  trial  and  poverty  and  temptation,  let  her  be  a 
wanderer  and  a  beggar,  if  she  mast;  but  leave  her  the  free  air, 
and  the  forest  liberty,  and  the  human  love  that  is  her  right, 
and  the  possibility  at  least  of  joy!" 

The  Italian  sighed  wearily. 

"  I  strive  for  the  best;  and  my  cruelty  is  not  as  yours.  I 
would  save  her  at  least  from  actual  pain;  you — if  you  do  her 
no  worse  thing — will  bind  on  her  a  passion  and  a  regret  that 
will  consume  her  to  her  grave.  I  know  her  nature;  and 
though  she  has  the  innocence,  she  has  not  the  inconstancy,  of 
a  child :  she  will  not  forcjet.  There  is  but  one  way  to  spare 
her:  leave  her." 

He  was  silent  a  while  longer,  as  the  priest'e  words  ceased, 
and  there  was  no  sound  save  the  falhng  of  a  water-course  rush- 
ing downward  through  the  gloom  and  through  the  leaves. 

'*  I  will  leave  her,"  he  said,  at  last — "  if  you  in  turn  givc^ 
me  your  word  never  to  force  her  life  into  a  convent?" 

The  Tuscan  bent  his  head. 


370  CHANDOS. 

"  I  promise." 

"So  be  it.  I  will  make  her  no  farewell;  let  her  think  me 
heartless  of  her,  if  she  will;  so  she  will  best  forget/' 

Then  he  went  upward  alone  through  the  evening  shadows, 
along  the  slope  of  the  hills,  to  the  loneliness  of  the  Latin  villa. 

Ill  the  gloom  of  the  deserted  hall  the  picture  of  the  diadem 
of  flowers  alone  gleamed  radiant  as  a  ray  of  the  moonlight  fell 
across  it.  He  paused  before  the  painting,  and  a  sudden  pity 
stole  on  him. 

The  promise  that  he  had  given  had  a  certain  pain  for  him. 
It  was  not  love  that  he  felt  for  her.  There  had  been  too  great 
a  darkness  on  his  life  for  the  softness  of  that  passion  easily  to 
revive;  but  he  had  found  a  pleasure  in  once  more,  after 
lengthened  solitude,  being  the  subject  of  that  sweet,  reverent 
adoration;  and  she  had  inspired  him  with  an  unspeakable 
compassion  for  her  fate^  which  could  not  let  him  muse  with- 
out anxiety  upon  that  fate's  inevitable  future.  There  had 
been  a  time  when  the  lavishness  of  his  gifts  and  the  influence 
of  his  word  could  have  lifted  her  into  happiness  as  easily  as  a 
flower  is  transplanted  into  sunlight  from  the  shade;  but  that 
time  was  far  away.  He  felt  the  hardest  pang  of  poverty  to 
those  of  generous  nature:  he  had  notJdng  to  give. 

He  had  offered  the  promise,  and  he  would  redeem  it  because 
she  was  motherless  and  defenseless,  and  therefore  sacred  to 
him;  but  he  stood  and  looked  at  the  flower-crowned  painting 
with  a  pang  of  regret. 

*'  It  is  a  harsh  mercy  that  he  asks  of  me,*'  he  thought; 
*' and  yet  what  else  should  be  the  end?  Love  is  no  toy  for 
me  now;  and  she  is  worthier  of  a  happier  fate  than  to  be  the 
passing  fancy,  the  consolation  of  an  hour,  to  a  worn  and 
vearied  life." 

On  the  morrow,  ere  the  bud  was  high,  he  was  far  froiM 
VMombronfl. 


CHANDOS.  37] 


BOOK  THE  SEVENTH. 

Let  go  thy  hold  when  a  great  wheel  goes  down  the  hill,  lest  it  break 
*liy  neck  with  following  it;  but  the  great  wheel  that  goes  up  the  hill, 
iet  him  draw  thee  after. — Shakespeare. 

He  that  calls  a  man  imgrateful,  sums  up  all  the  evil  that  a  man  can 
be  guilty  of.  —Swift. 

If  the  deed  were  evil 
Be  thou  contented,  wearing  now  the  garland. 

Shakespeaes. 

L'artiste  est  un  dieu  tombe  qui  se  souvient  d'un  temps  ou  il  creait  un 
monde. — Aksene  Houssaye. 


CHAPTER  I. 

**  DO  WELL  UNTO  THTSELP,  AND  MEN  WILL  SPEAK   GOOD   OB 

THEE. " 

The  member  for  Darshamptoa  sat  at  breakfast  in  his  house 
ill  town — a  fine  mansion,  whose  rental  was  two  thousand  a 
year,  yet  in  whose  unostentatious  and  solid  comfort  there  was 
the  impress  of  sterling  w'ealth,  but  not  a  trace  of  parvenu 
arrogance  or  ill  taste.  It  was  luxurious,  certainly;  but  withal 
it  was  quiet,  subdued,  and  bore  the  impress  of  a  plain  sobriety, 
but  a  settled  affluence.  There  was  no  "  veneer  "  in  a  parti- 
cle of  it,  and  a  good  deal  of  it  even  had  that  ugliness  which 
in  this  country  is  considered  a  voucher  for  practical  utility  and 
moral  virtue.  The  fashion  of  all  its  decorations  and  garniture 
had  little  beauty;  they  were  angular  and  commonplace,  but 
they  were  never  florid,  and  their  gold  was  real  gold,  their  vel- 
vets were  real  velvet. 

Ue  sat  at  breakfast  in  his  dining-room,  which  saw  given, 
season  after  season,  the  very  best  dinners  in  town.  It  was  a 
long,  low  room,  hung  with  crimson  and  with  a  few  fine  pict- 
ures; at  the  further  end  was  a  white  bust  on  a  pillar  of  jasper: 
it  was  the  bust  of  a  long-dead  statesman,  Philip  Ciiandos. 
The  member  for  Darshampton  was  taking  his  breakfast,  sur- 
rounded with  a  sea  of  morning  papers;  he  had  already  done 
two  hours'  hard  work  with  his  secretary,  dictating,  annotating, 
reading  reports,  computing  statistic?,  conning   over  jsrms. 

4-2d  half. 


372  CHANDOS. 

Leisure,  indeed,  was  a  thing  he  never  knew;  untiring,  elastic, 
indefatigable,  unsparing,  he  was  an  admirable  man  of  business, 
and  every  moment  of  his  day  was  consumed  in  a  labor  seem- 
ingly borne  as  lightly  as  it  was  in  seality  thoroughly  done, 
whatever  its  nature. 

Public  life  was  his  natural  sphere;  to  it  he  brought  a  brain 
ever  vigilant,  an  energy  ever  unconquerable,  a  facility  that 
might  have  been  almost  too  facile  had  it  not  been  corrected  by 
a  keen  and  vigorous  patience  that  would  never  slur  over  any- 
thing, and  that  searched  out  tlie  minutest  points  of  every  sub- 
ject. Yet  the  enormous  variety,  and  the  intensity  of  applica- 
tion that  characterized  his  work,  told  in  no  sort  of  way  on  his 
health:  he  felt  well,  looked  well,  slept  well;  he  never  found 
any  tax  on  his  strength  touch  him  more  than  if  he  had  been 
made  of  oak  or  granite;  he  never  knew  what  pain  or  what 
weariness  was.  He  reaped  now  the  recompense  of  the  train- 
ing, the  temperance,  and  the  entire  freedom  from  all  license 
in  vice  that  lie  had  imposed  on  himself  so  severely  througliout 
his  early  manhood.  His  eyes  were  as  bright,  his  skin  as  clear, 
his  teeth  as  white,  his  smile  as  merry,  as  twenty  years  before; 
John  Trevenua  was  unchanged— unchanged  in  form  and  feat- 
ure, in  manner  and  in  mind.  In  the  first,  the  man  was  too 
healthily  framed  to  alter  much  with  time;  in  the  latter,  he 
was  too  integrally  original,  and  bore  too  thorough  and  marked 
an  idiosyncrasy,  to  alter  while  he  had  life.  He  cut  his  impress 
on  the  world  about  him,  he  did  not  take  his  mold  from  it: 
men  of  this  type  change  little.  Moreover,  Trevenna  had  Suc- 
cess: it  is  a  finer  tonic  than  any  the  Pharmacopoeia  holds, 
specially  for  those  who,  like  him,  are  too  wise  to  let  it  be  also 
a  stimulant. that  intoxicates  or  an  opiate  that  drugs  them. 

He  had  success  of  the  richest  and  the  fullest.  Slowly  won, 
but  surely,  he  had  mounted  his  cautious  and  victorious  way  to 
those  heights  that  long  ago  had  been  a  goal  of  which  men 
would  have  called  him  a  madman  ever  to  dream,  and  had 
netted  together  the  innumerable  threads  of  his  policies  and  his 
efforts,  till  he  had  woven  them  into  a  rope-ladder  strong 
enough  and  long  enough  to  enable  him  to  reach  the  power  he 
had  coveted  from  earliest  boyhood.  His  rise  had,  in  appear- 
ance, been  gradual,  yet  it  had  been  rapid  in  fruits  and  in  at- 
tainment; and  there  were  few  men  living  of  whom  so  much 
was  thought  in  the  present,  from  whom  so  much  was  expected 
in  the  future.  The  sedulous  training  he  had  pursued  so 
patiently  had  brought  its  own  reward:  none  went  to  the  polit- 
ical arena  more  finely  prepared  for  it:  none  had  more  com- 
pletely gained  a  footing  and  a  power  there. 


CHANDOS.  373 

The  first  words  he  had  uttered  in  the  House  had  told  them 
his  quality,  had  told  them  that  no  ordinary  man  had  come 
among  them  to  represent  that  little  borough  of  the  southwest- 
ern sea-board;  but  he  had  been  careful,  and  he  ha.l  been  wise. 
He  had  not  alarmed  them  with  a  sudden  burst  of  talent;  he 
had  been  content  to  run  a  waiting  race  for  the  first,  and  to 
bide  his  time.  He  had  let  his  m]luenoe  groiv  ;  he  had  beeii 
noted  earliest  rather  for  his  admirable  common  sense  and  liis 
practical  working-powers  than  for  anything  more  brilliant; 
and  gradually  as  his  critical  audience,  who  regarded  him  as  an 
outsider  and  an  adventurer,  became  cognizant  of  his  value,  he 
allowed  the  true  resources  and  the  real  capabilities  of  his  mind 
to  be  discovered.  Fcstina  lente  was  his  motto,  and  he  had  fol- 
lowed it  with  a  patience  the  more  marvelous  in  one  whose 
quicii,  energetic,  prompt,  caustic  temper  always  urged  him  to 
instant  action  and  ironic  retort. 

Now  he  had  his  reward;  his  weight  was  immense,  his  popu- 
larity with  the  large  and  wealthy  and  liberal  mass  of  the  coun- 
try, extreme.  Ministers  dreaded  him,  chiefs  of  his  own  party 
recognized  in  him  the  first  of  all  their  auxiliaries;  Government 
v^oukl  have  bought  his  silence  with  any  j)lace;  the  benches 
never  were  so  crowded  as  on  a  night  when  one  of  his  watched- 
for  and  trenchant  speeches  rang  through  the  drowsy  air  of  the 
Lower  Chamber  like  tlie  clear  stirring  notes  of  a  trumpet. 
He  was  rich;  his  commercial  speculations,  made  with  that 
unerring  acumen  which  distinguished  him,  had  prospered  and 
multiplied  a  thousandfold;  all  he  undertook  succeeded.  Those 
who  had  sneered  him  down  had  become  compelled  to  court  and 
conciliate  him;  great  orders  who  hud  dubbed  him  nobody,  and 
shut  him  with  scorn  outside  their  pale,  now  learned  to  dread 
him  as  their  direst  opponent.  Houses  where  he  had  used  to 
enter  on  sufferance  now  received  him  as  an  honored  guest; 
statesmen  who  had  once  blackballed  him  at  clubs  now  would 
have  given  any  splendid  bribe  he  would  have  taken  to  still  his 
dedance  or  to  secure  his  alliance.  Against  prestige,  preju- 
aice,  poverty,  the  sneer  of  the  world,  the  antagonism  of  the 
nobility,  the  uttermost  disadvantages  and  difficulties  of  posi- 
tion, Trevenna  had  fought  his  way  into  a  foremost  rank,  and 
compelled  his  foes  to  acknowledge  and  to  dread  the  man  whom 
they  had  laughed  down  as  an  insignificant /(r/Tcwr,  a  nameless 
club-lounger.  Ilis  conquest  was  grand;  the  indomitable  cour- 
age that  he  had  brought  to  it,  the  exhaustless  endurance  with 
which  he  had  sustained  defeat  and  humiliation,  the  untiring 
resolve  with  which  he  had  kept  one  aim  in  view  so  long  and 
beaten  down  the   barriers  of  class  and  custom,  are  the  most 


374  CHAKDOS. 

magQificent  qualities  of  human  life.  The  work  was  great, 
and  greatly  done.  The  man  who  vanquishes  the  opprobrium 
of  adverse  orders  and  the  opposition  of  adverse  circumstances 
is  a  soldier  as  stanch  as  the  Barca  brood  of  Carthage;  but — ■ 
weapons  with  which  the  fight  had  been  fought  here  were  foul  as 
an  assassin's,  and  the  root,  like  the  goal  of  the  struggle,  was 
envy.  A  man  may  rise  with  an  admirable  perseverance  and 
dauntlessness;  but  the  hatchets  with  which  he  carves  his  way 
up  the  steep  shelving  ice-slope  may  nevertheless  be  blood- 
stained steel  and  stolen  goods.  We  are  too  apt,  in  our  won- 
der and  our  applause  at  the  height  to  which  he  has  attained 
against  all  odds,  to  forget  to  note  whether  his  steps  up  the  in- 
cline have  been  clean  and  justly  taken. 

Trevenna's  frankness,  his  bonhomie,  his  logical  brain,  his 
racy  eloquence,  his  practical  working-powers,  his  taking  can- 
dor, with  which  he  avowed  himself  of  the  middle  classes, 
claiming  no  rights  of  birth,  his  cheerful  and  unerring  good 
sense,  with  which  he  would  alike  treat  a  pohtical  question  by 
examining  its  business  utility,  and  disarm  asocial  sneer  by  dis- 
claiming all  pretensions  to  rank  or  to  dignity,  charmed  the 
world  in  general,  paralyzed  his  aristocratic  foes,  and  pioneered 
his  way  wherever  he  would,  giving  him  a  wide  and  sure  hold 
on  the  classes  to  whose  sympathies  he  made  his  direct  appeal. 
The  fine  intrigues  by  which  power  had  been  secretly  won  to 
him,  the  merciless  knowledge  with  which  he  coerced  those 
whose  histories  he  held  in  a  tyranny  none  the  less  irresistible  be- 
cause tacit,  the  paths  in  which  his  finesses  had  wandered  to 
gather  his  hold  on  so  many,  the  sinks  out  of  whicii  his  wealth 
had  been  taken,  as  gold  is  found  in  the  sewers,  the  manifold 
infamies  into  which  his  bright  skill  had  dived,  to  issue  from 
them  with  a  terrible  omnipotence,  the  network  of  inimitable 
chicaneries,  ever  wisely  to  windward  of  the  law,  with  which  he 
had  overspread  the  world  he  had  vanquished,  the  commercial 
gambling  in  which  he  had  filled  his  treasuries  by  a  fluke,  and 
doubled  and  quadrupled  gains  gotten  by  lies,  the  hearty, 
ironic,  good-humored,  rascally  contempt  in  which  he  held  all 
mankind  and  disbelieved  in  all  honesty — these  were  unknown, 
unguessed,  alike  by  the  people  who  believed  in  him,  by  the 
aristocracies  who  hated  him,  by  the  party  who  adored  him, 
and  by  the  world  on  which  he  had,  against  odds  so  vast, 
graven  the  impress  of  his  darmg  and  splendid  talent. 

When  the  white  block  of  marble  shines  so  solid  and  so  cost- 
ly, who  remembers  that  it  was  once  made  up  of  decaying  shells 
and  rotting  bones  and  millions  of  dying  insect-lives,  pressed  to 
ashes  ere  the  rare  stone  was? 


CHANDOS.  375 

Trevenua's  success  was,  like  the  bricks  of  the  ancient  tem- 
ples, cemented  with  the  blood  of  quivering  hearts;  but  it  was 
all  the  firmer  for  that,  and  none  the  less  victorious.  Now, 
where  he  sat  in  his  dining-room,  he  glanced  down  the  leaders 
of  his  own  especial  organ,  a  journal  that  ever  sounded  "  lo 
triumphe  "  before  him — glanced  amusedly  over  the  closing 
words  of  the  column  devoted  to  the  praise  of  "  the  most  prom- 
ising statesman  we  possess — the  assured  chief  of  the  future — 
the  great  orator  by  whom  Darshampton  is  so  nobly  repre- 
sented.'" 

"Of  unflagging  energj'-,"  pursued  his  claqueur  of  the 
*'  Communist,^'  "  of  the  highest  j)olitical  probity,  of  a  fixity 
of  principle  never  to  be  turned  from  its  goal  by  the  gilded  bait 
of  office,  of  talents  most  versatile,  yet  which  never  interfere 
with  his  devotion  to  the  smallest  business  detail  or  mercantile 
interest;  essentially  English  in  creed,  bias,  and  temper,  pre- 
ferring solid  excellence  to  the  flashy  fascination  of  superficial 
attainment,  and  signalized  by  cordial  and  earnest  sympathies 
with  the  wishes  and  the  rights  of  the  masses,  it  is  to  Mr.  Tre- 
venna  that  all  thoughtful  and  advanced  minds  must  inevitably 
look  for  progress  and  assistance  in  the  future  of  our  nation. 
The  laws,  the  liberties,  the  domestic  virtues  of  the  hearth  and 
home,  the  independence  abroad,  and  the  prosjjerity  of  internal 
interests,  the  maintenance  of  religion  and  morality,  the  secur- 
ity of  the  birthright  of  freedom  to  the  poorest  life  that 
breathes — all  that  are  so  notably  dear  to  every  Englishman  are 
equally  2:>recious  to  liim ;  and  their  preservation  from  all  foreign 
taint  and  alien  tyranny  is  the  object  alike  of  his  public  and 
private  career.  Conquest  does  not  recommend  itself  to  him  as 
peace  and  charity  do;  and  the  clash  of  arms  is  jarring  on  his 
ear  when  heard  instead  of  the  whirr  of  a  myriad  looms,  bread- 
wiuning  and  bread-giving.  The  welfare  of  the  vast  industrial 
classes  of  Great  Britain  is  at  his  heart  before  all  else;  and  to 
the  sway  which  he  exerts  over  the  Senate,  even  when  its  mem- 
bers be  most  strongly  adverse  to  him,  we  mny  apply  the  trite 
lines  of  the  '^Eneid,'  '  Hoc  tibi  erunt  artes,^  etc.,  etc." 

So  the  "  Communist. ""  Trevenna  laughed:  the  lion  had 
too  much  racy  humor  in  him  not  to  enjoy  the  ridicule  of  his 
jackal's  fine  2)cro ration. 

'*  Very  well,  my  good  fellow,"  he  thought,  condescendingly. 
*'  Laid  on  a  trifle  too  thick,  perhaps;  and  you  will  call  the 
Commons  a  '  Senate,'  and  nothing  will  cure  you  of  trotting 
out  your  bit  of  school  Latin,  whether  it  quite  fits  or  not:  still, 
it  does  very  well.  *  Virtues  of  the  hearth  and  home;'  ah! 
pothing  brings  down  the  House  like  that.     We're  as  black- 


376  CHANDOS. 

guard  a  nation  as  any  going  in  vice,  bnt  wo  do  love  to  amble 
out  with  a  period  about  domestic  bosh.  My  jjuffs  were  neater 
when  I  wrote  'em  myself;  no  gale  blows  you  so  bravely  along 
as  the  breeze  you  prick  yourself  out  of  the  wind-bag.  Who 
should  know  so  well  as  yourself  all  your  most  telling  hits,  your 
tidbits  of  excellence,  your  charming  niceties  of  virtue?  The 
puff  perfect  is  the  puff  personal — adroitly  masked.  Mercy  on 
us!  I  do  believe  Hudibras  is  right,  and  the  cheated  enjoy 
being  cheated.  If  I  told  my  dearly  beloved  masses,  now, 
*  You're  a  lot  of  uneducated  donkeys — but  you're  my  best 
stepjjing-stones,  and  so  I  make  you  lie  down  and  I  get  into 
your  saddles,'  they'd  be  disgusted  to-morrow.  I  talk  liberties, 
moderated  Socialism,  philanthropy,  and  moralities;  I  wear  the 
Bonnet  Rouge  discreetly  weighted  down  with  a  fine  tassel  of 
British  prudence,  and  they  believe  in  me!  Can't,  either, 
quite,  surely?  And  yet  I  don't  know;  there  isn't  anything  so 
easily  taken  in  as  a  whole  country.  Nine  tenths  of  a  nation 
are  such  fools — that's  where  it  is;  of  course  the  other  tenth 
part  do  what  tbey  like  with  them." 

With  which  reflection  on  the  aggregate  of  whom  he  was  an 
honored  representative,  Trevenna  eat  a  rognoii  au  vin  cle 
MacUrc.  His  delight  in  the  infinite  jest  of  the  world  was  un- 
changed; he  enjoyed  with  an  unction  never  sated  the  whole  of 
the  vast  burlesque  to  which  he  j^layed  the  triumphuut  jjart  of 
Arlecchino;  his  heart  was  as  light  as  a  boy's,  and  his  humor 
as  savory  as  Falstaff's.  Having  worn  the  robes  of  respecta- 
bility of  a  grave  and  reverend  seignior  all  day  long  before  the 
people,  he  would  come  home  and  toss  them  off  with  as  mis- 
chievous a  glee  at  the  perfection  with  which  he  had  played  his 
23art  as  in  earlier  days  he  had  tossed  aside  his  domino  and 
mask  after  teasing  the  life  out  of  everybody  at  a  masquerade. 
He  eat  his  kidne}^  glancing  over  some  other  journals  that 
echoed  the  "  Communist "  with  a  more  or  less  different  word- 
ing, and  some  Oijposition  ones  that  flattered  him  equally  well 
by  damning  him  so  very  strongly  that  nothing  but  an  acute 
dread  of  him  could  make  them  so  bitter.  Of  the  two,  perhaps 
these  i^Ieasel  him  the  best.  Intense  abuse  may  be,  on  the 
whole,  a  surer  testimony  to  your  power  than  intense  j^raise; 
and,  moreover,  he  was  of  that  nature  which  is  never  so  vigor- 
ously happy  as  when  it  has  something  to  combat.  He  was 
made  of  splendidly  tough  stuff,  this  man  who  had  been  so  long 
looked  down  ujjon  as  a  mere  town-chatterbox  and  diner-out; 
and  he  throve  on  every  added  effort  which  endeavored  to  dis- 
place him,  and  only  grew  the  more  firmly  rooted  for  it. 
Breakfast  done,  and  a  first-rate  cigar  or  two  smoked,  he  rose, 


CHANDOS.  377 

nodded  to  the  white  bast  at  the  end  of  the  chamber  with  mis- 
chief in  his  eyes,  as  though  it  were  a  living  tiling  (he  hiied  to 
see  that  bit  of  statuary  there,  as  soldiers  like  to  see  their 
enemy's  standards  droop  on  their  mess-room  walls,  in  witness 
of  hard-fought  and  successful  war),  and  went  out  to  his  busy 
day.  He  toiled  none  the  less  than  he  had  done  when  self-edu- 
cating himself  for  the  tribuneship  he  now  filled;  he  was  not  a 
whit  less  punctual,  arduous,  and  methodical  than  he  had  been 
when  he  had  ground  logic  and  finance  and  laws  of  exchange, 
while  the  world  thought  him  an  \d\e  flaneur  ;  everything  he 
undertook  was  done  with  a  conscientious  thoroughness,  none 
the  less  complete  because  its  far-sighted  motive  was  ultimate 
aggrandizement.  Let  him  have  risen  as  high  as  he  would,  he 
would  never  have  spared  himself:  he  loved  work  for  its  own 
pleasure,  as  a  man  loves  swimming. 

His  party  was  out  of  office  at  this  time — had  been  so  for 
some  two  or  three  years;  whenever  they  should  come  in  again, 
he  knew  they  could  not  help  but  olfer  him  a  seat  in  the  Cabi- 
net; well  as  many  of  them  detested  him,  they  dared  not  risk 
his  enmity  or  his  opposition.  To  get  them  into  office  once 
more,  therefore,  and  write  himself  the  Right  Honorable  John 
Trevenna,  he  labored  assiduously,  and  for  the  opposite  faction 
with  a  terrible  abilit}'.  He  had  so  weakened,  undermined, 
countermined,  impugned,  ridiculed,  arraigned,  and  strijDped 
bare  their  policies,  that  it  was  generally  believed  they  would 
be  compelled  before  long  to  try  an  appeal  to  the  country. 
They  had  no  one  strong  enough  in  debate,  though  they  had 
several  brilliant  speakers,  to  02)pDse  the  sledge-hammer  force 
of  his  close  arguments  and  the  weight  of  his  keen  logic,  that 
felled  their  defenses  with  its  sharp  pole-ax. 

Ho  accorded  now  two  hours  after  breakfast  to  correspond- 
ence and  such  matters;  then  he  gave  audience  to  a  IJarshamp- 
ton  deputation,  who  came  in  sturdily  sullen,  but  were  received 
with  such  chatty  familiarity,  such  pleasant  good  nature,  that 
they  went  out  again  docile  and  enchanted,  and  never  had  time 
to  remendjer  till  they  were  half-way  home  that  they  had  ex- 
tracted no  pledge  from  him  and  received  not  one  single  definite 
tinswer;  then  he  saw  some  score  or  more  of  different  visitors, 
breathless  with  political  anxiety  or  brimming  with  political 
rumors;  a  private  iaterviovv  with  a  foreign  embassador,  and  a 
confidential  /c/e-a-(cie  with  a  great  lord  of  his  i^'ii'ty,  followed; 
then  he  sauntered  into  one  or  two  of  the  Pall  Mall  clubs,  as 
full  of  news,  wit,  and  good  humor  as  when  he  had  made  his 
rejjartees  to  get  his  dinners;  then  he  drove  down  to  show  at  a 
couple  of  garden-parties  at  a  French  prince's  and  a  Scotch 


378  ■  "  CHAKDOS. 

duchess's,  vivacious,  full  of  fun,  charmiug  the  ladies  as  "  so 
droll,  so  original!^'  and  playing  lawn-billiards  as  if  he  had  not 
another  stake  in  the  world;  then  he  went  to  the  House  for  a 
couple  of  hours  and  launched  a  short  speech  that  told  like  a 
rifle-shot;  then  he  went  to  a  dinner-party  at  a  great  chief's  of 
his  party;  and  thence  to  an  Embassy-ball. 

There  were  wars  and  rumors  of  war  political  pending;  there 
was  agitation  in  the  great  aristocratic  ranks  of  opposition; 
there  were  excitement  and  intrigue  in  the  whole  of  the  world 
of  state-craft.  It  was  a  crisis,  as  the  grandes  dames  mur- 
mured with  emphasis,  and  he  liked  to  show  these  nobles,  these 
hereditary  statesmen,  these  women  who  had  once  scarcely 
bowed  to  him  as  a  "  rank  outsider,"  that  he  could  take  the 
emergency  with  all  the  sang-froid  imaginable,  gossip  as  pleas- 
antly as  though  no  import  hung  on  the  night,  and  chatter  with 
a  duchess  about  Tuileries  tittle-tattle  till  he  was  called  away 
and  carried  forcibly  off  by  a  whip  who  was  in  the  height  of 
haste  and  trepidation. 

"He  will  cut  some  work  out  for  you,"  had  the  old  duke 
once  said  of  him;  and  Trevenna  made  good  his  words.  His 
party  hated  alliance  with  him,  but  they  no  more  dared  alienate 
him  than  they  dared  have  called  him  in  Darshampton  what 
they  called  him  in  secret — a  demagogue.  Of  a  truth  he  was 
no  demagogue;  he  was  far  too  wise  and  far  too  cultured.  He 
was  simply  a  sagacious,  audacious,  astute,  and  unerring  poli- 
tician, willing  to  lead  the  people  as  far  as  it  was  his  interest  to 
do  so,  but  not  one  step  further  if  they  starved  by  the  thou- 
sand. 

Many  lords  had  come  down  to  hear  the  Debate;  the  Ladies' 
and  Strangers'  Galleries  were  full,  the  crowds  outside  the 
House  packed  close  in  expectation;  it  was  known  that  the  fate 
of  parties  hinged  chiefly  on  this  night's  issue.  With  a  gray 
paletot  over  his  evening  dress,  he  sauntered  to  his  place,  im- 
jjerturbable,  nonchalant,  looking  as  bright  and  as  keen  as 
though  he  were  just  going  up  to  the  wickets  at  cricket.  All  eyes 
were  on  him;  he  was  used  to  that  by  this  time,  and  liked  noth- 
ing better.  He  loved  to  know  that  his  brisk,  elastic  step,  and 
his  good-humored,  easy  bearing,  were  as  well  known  here  as 
ihe  haughty  grace  of  Philip  Chandos  once  had  been.  The 
ambition  of  his  life  centered  in  the  turn  of  the  night;  the 
hopes  of  his  party  centered  in  himself.  It  was  his  to  attack, 
and,  if  possible,  to  defeat,  the  Government,  and  all  the  re- 
sourceis  of  his  intellect  had  been  brought  to  meet  the  need ; 
yet,  as  he  took  his  seat,  he  was  as  genial,  as  bright,  as  light- 
hearted,  as  though  he  were  a  school-boy,  and  w^as  so  without  a 


CHAKDOS.  379 

shade  of  affectation  in  it.    He  had  the  qualities  of  a  very  great 
man  in  him,  and  he  loved  the  atmosphere  of  conflict. 

His  famous  rival's  speech  closed:  it  had  been  brilliant,  per- 
suasive, subtle,  launching  an  unpopular  measure  with  con- 
summate skill,  and  fascinating,  if  it  failed  to  convince,  aU 
auditors.  It  was  no  facile  task  to  reply  to  and  refute  him 
Trevenna  rose,  one  hand  lightly  laid  on  the  rail,  the  other  in 
the  breast  of  his  coat;  on  his  lips  was  his  pleasant,  frank 
smile:  the  Opposition  had  learned  to  dread  its  meaning.  The 
House  was  profoundly  hushed  as  his  voice,  perfectly  moder- 
ated, but  resonant,  telling  and  clarion-like,  pierced  the  silence. 
He  knew  well  how  to  hold  its  ear. 

He  was  a  master  of  the  great  art  of  banter.  It  is  a  marvel- 
ous force:  it  kills  sanctity,  unveils  sophistry,  travesties  wis- 
dom, cuts  through  the  finest  shield,  and  turns  the  noblest  im- 
pulses to  hopeless  ridicule.  He  was  a  master  of  it;  with  it  he 
rent  his  antagonist's  arguments  like  gauze,  stripped  his  meta- 
phors naked,  pilloried  his  logic  and  his  rhetoric,  his  finance 
and  his  economics,  and  left  the  residue  of  his  ornate  eloquence 
a  skeleton  and  a  laughing-stock.  He  did  this  matchlessly, 
and  did  not  do  it  too  much:  he  knew  the  temper  of  his  audi- 
ence, and  never  transgressed  its  laws  of  courtesy.  He  carried 
it  with  him  as  by  magic,  and  from  his  lighter  weapons  he 
passed  on,  and  took  up  the  terseness  of  reasoning,  the  close- 
ness of  logic,  the  mathematical  exactitude,  the  shrewd,  prac- 
tical common  sense,  without  which  no  speaker  will  ever 
thoroughly  gain  the  confidence  and  homage  of  the  English 
Commons.  It  might  not  be  the  silver  eloquence  of  a  Demos- 
thenes, but  it  was  the  oratory  suited  above  all  to  his  theme  and 
to  his  place;  classic,  moreover,  even  whilst  it  was  business-like 
and  restrained,  as  befitting  a  gathering  of  gentlemen,  even 
whilst  most  audacious,  most  pungent,  most  merciless  in  rail- 
lery and  attack. 

The  House  cheered  him  in  riotous  excitement  as  lie  sat 
down,  and  the  supreme  triumph  of  a  triumphant  life  was 
given  him.  His  speech  did  a  rare  thing  in  St.  Stephen's:  it 
influenced  the  votes;  the  Government  was  defeated  hopelessly 
on  a  great  issue,  and  could  have  no  choice  but  to  resign. 

There  was  the  grandeur,  if  there  were  the  insolence,  of 
supreme  success,  self- won,  in  Trevenna's  eyes  and  in  his 
thoughts,  as  he  went  out  in  the  lateness  of  the  night  with  the 
cheers  which  had  ratified  his  victory  still  seeming  to  echo  in 
his  ear.  He  looked,  as  his  carriage  rolled  through  the  gas- 
lights, down  the  darkling  streets  of  Westminster,  and  thought 
of  the  night  he  had  stood  there  as  a  boy  and  trodden  out  the 


380  CHANDOS. 

luscious  Paris  bonbons  of  a  young  child's  gift.     What  had  he 
done  since  then! 

"  Beaux  seigneurs!  what  of  the  outsider  ^^o?^;?"  he  mused, 
with  his  victorious  smile  on  his  mouth.  "  In  a  week's  time  I 
shall  be  called  the  Eight  Ilox.  Johx  Treven-xa;  and  they 
dread  me  so  bitterly  they  will  dare  to  refuse  me  no  place  in 
the  Cabinet  that  I  choose  to  command." 

''The  ministry  wHl  go  out.  Sit  down,  and  don't  yawn: 
there  is  no  end  to  do/'  he  said,  curtly,  to  his  secretary,  as  he 
threw  off  his  paletot  and  entered  his  library.  It  was  nigh  four 
in  the  morning;  but  his  indefatigable  elasticity  and  energy 
knew  no  fatigue.  As  though  just  fresh  to  the  work,  he 
plunged  into  correspondence  that  no  precis-writing  could  have 
made  terser  and  no  diplomatist  have  sur^^assed  for  masterly 
surface-honesty  and  secret  reticence.  A  splendid  campaign 
had  been  finished;  a  splendid  campaign  was  to  be  commenced. 
The  army  of  attack  had  been  led  triumphant;  the  army  of 
occupation  was  to  be  headed  in  the  future.  There  would  be 
others  higher  than  he  in  the  titular  dignities  of  office,  but 
tliere  would  be  none  higher  in  virtual  power. 

"  Ah,  monseigneur,"  he  thought,  as  he  passed  through  his 
hall  and  glanced  at  the  bust  of  the  great  minister,  "  it  is  / 
who  hold  your  scepter."  And  he  went  to  lie  down  as  lightly 
as  a  boy  of  ten,  to  fresh  and  dreamless  sleep. 

"  Do  well  unto  thyself,  and  the  world  will  speak  well  of 
thee."  It  was  rare  indeed  that  ever  now  there  was  found  one 
bold  enough  to  murmur  against  the  wealthy  speculator,  the 
popular  favorite,  the  astute  politician,  the  audacious  and  saga- 
cious winner  of  all  life's  choicest  prizes,  the  bitter  word  that 
had  long  ago  been  cast  at  him — "  adventurer." 

Others  forgot  that  old  time;  he  did  not.  He  loved  to  re- 
member every  jot  of  it.  He  loved  to  remember  the  vow  he 
had  sworn  in  the  midnight  streets  in  his  childhood.  He  loved 
(o  remember  every  privation  endured,  every  smart  felt,  every 
insolence  taken  in  silence,  every  long  lonely  night  spent  in 
hard  toil  and  pitiless  study,  while  the  merry  world  laughed 
around  in  its  pleasures  and  vices.  He  loved  to  count  up  how 
much  he  had  conquered,  and  to  pay  back  gibes  of  twenty  years 
ago,  treasured  up  and  waiting  their  vengeance;  he  loved  to 
make  men  who  had  turned  their  backs  on  him  then  bow  be- 
fore him  nov/,  and  to  glance  downward  on  the  vast  decline  up 
v,-hich  he  had  mounted,  and  to  think  how  the  sureness  of  his 
foot  and  the  keenness  of  his  eye  had  brought  him  against  all 
difficulty  to  the  table-lands  where  he  now  stood  secure.  AIJ 
he  forgot  were — benefits. 


CHANDOS.  381 

With  these  triumphal  thoughts  did  remorse  ever  mingle? 
Did  he  ever  remember  the  cost  to  other  lives  at  which  so  mucli 
of  his  victory  had  been  gained?  Did  he  ever  give  a  flush  o' 
shame  when  he  recollected  how  he  had  rewarded  evil  for  good, 
and  bitten  through  with  tiger-fangs  the  hand  which  had  loaded 
him  with  gifts,  and  betrayed  and  robbed  and  driven  down  to 
ruin  the  most  loyal  friend  that  ever  gave  him  fearless  faith? 
Never  once!  Amidst  the  pteans  of  success  conscience  has 
small  chance  to  be  heard,  and  the  temper  of  Trevenna  was 
proof  against  all  such  weakness.  He  would  have  said  that  he 
knew  neither  form  of  iil-digestion — neither  dyspepsia  nor  re- 
pentance. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

THE   THEOKE    OF   THE   EXILE. 

It  was  in  the  boudoir  of  the  great  house  of  Lilliesford,  shad- 
ed, fragrant  witli  innumerable  plants — a  room  where  coquet- 
ries of  the  softest  would  have  their  fullest  play — where,  how- 
ever, it  was  oflener  that  a  political  coterie  wove  its  silken 
meshes  for  men's  souls  and  official  j)laces.  There  were  times 
when  the  great  of  the  nation  would  listen  there  to  the  charm- 
ing voices  that  murmured  of  a  "  crisis;"  there  were  times 
when  foreign  diplomatists,  in  a  coigne  of  vantage  beneath  the 
bronze  shade  of  broad  Mexican  leaves,  would  unwind  other 
coils  than  those  of  the  floss  silks  that  they  held;  there  were 
times  when  ladies,  in  this  witching  temple  of  secrecy,  would 
believe  they  governed  the  universe  because  they  schemed  for  a 
party,  and  would  think  they  had  the  making  of  history  because 
they  had  the  gift  of  a  place.  Very  beautiful  women  w^ere  seen 
in  it  sometimes,  but  they  were  rarely  the  gay  young  sover- 
eigns; they  were  rather  the  older  and  more  stately  leaders  of 
the  world  political.  For  of  these  latter  w^as  the  Countess  of 
Clydesmore. 

She  sat  there  now,  in  the  darkest  depth  of  the  shadow,  her 
head  slightly  bent,  no  light  on  the  rich  brown  wealth  of  her 
hair  or  the  sculpture-like  perfection  of  her  features.  She  was 
a  woman  whom  her  own  great  world  revered:  no  levity  ever 
touched  her  name,  no  cof|uetry  ever  lowered  her  dignity.  Am- 
bitious she  was,  though  slie  scarce  knew  what  for — rather  for 
the  simple  suke  and  sweetness  of  power  and  of  prerogative  than 
anything  else.  I£  her  heart  ren)ained  cold  as  ice  to  the  nuiu 
whose  name  she  graced  and  whose  children  she  had  borne — if 
her  young  sons  never  saw  any  smne  lu  nor  eyes.  Due  snrunij 


382  CHANDOS. 

from  her  ia  their  infancy,  chilled  and  afraid — her  world  did 
not  know  this,  and,  had  it  known,  would  have  thought  it  no 
breach  of  the  social  code.  We  lay  blame  to  society  because  it 
judges  from  the  surface:  idle  blame:  how  else  can  it  judge? 

She  was  a  stainless  wife,  of  a  lofty  jjurity  of  life;  if  in  her 
soul  she  hated  with  a  hate  intense  as  passion  the  man  to  whom 
she  had  bound  captive  her  beauty — if  when  she  looked  on  the 
children  she  had  brought  him  she  pressed  her  lijjs  tight  to 
hold  back  a  curse  on  them  because  he  was  their  father — who 
could  tell  this?  None — save  the  husband  who  had  heard 
another  name  than  his  own  murmured  wearily  in  the  dreams 
of  her  bridal  sleep — save  the  young  boys  who  glanced  at  her 
with  timid,  troubled  eyes,  and  wondered  why,  when,  for  duty 
or  for  appearance,  she  had  touched  their  clieeks  with  a  kiss, 
she  thrust  them  away  with  an  involuntary  revulsion  as  they 
saw  her  thrust  a  tiresome  dog. 

jSTow  Lady  Clydesmore  leaned  back,  musing  of  the  prospects 
of  her  party.  She  reigned  for  reigning's  sake;  she  wove  for 
weaving's  sake;  she  was  ambitious  because  her  nature  could 
not  choose  but  be  so;  she  intrigued  because  she  was  weary  of 
her  life  and  forgot  herself  a  little  the  quickest  in  these  cabals. 
It  was  neither  for  her  husband  nor  her  sons  that  she  labored: 
if  the  raising  of  her  hand  could  have  made  the  one  a  king,  she 
would  not  for  his  sake  have  raised  it;  if  by  lifting  it  the  others 
could  have  died  out  of  her  sight  and  out  of  her  memory,  and 
sunk  into  their  graves,  it  would  have  been  lifted  as  eagerly,  as 
pitilessly,  as  ever  Roman  matrons  gave  the  sign  for  the 
slaughter  in  the  arena.  But  the  acquisition  of  privilege  and 
the  vanity  of  her  ovs'n  splendid  dominion  were  the  passions  of 
her  character:  she  had  sickened  long  ago  of  the  reign  of  her 
beauty;  the  domain  of  intellectual  and  political  pre-eminence 
remained  to  her,  and  she  had  occupied  it  and  usurped  it. 

The  three  ladies  with  her  had  their  toy-dogs,  in  the  shape 
of  a  young  duke,  a  Guardsman,  and  a  foreign  attache,  at  their 
side,  but  were  talking  now  of  one  who  had  also  won  his  way  to 
that  closely  fenced  and  closely  crowded  table-rock  of  political 
etrife. 

*'  It  could  not  have  been  formed  without  h'm,"  said  one  fair 
politician. 

"  Oh,  no,'' assented  a  yet  warmer  partisan.  "lie  could 
make  his  own  terms." 

"  He  was  moderate  to  be  content  w^ith  the  Colonial,''  mur- 
mured the  Lady  of  Lilliesford. 

"  The  Board  of  Trade  might  have  done?"  suggested  the 
first. 


CHANDOS.  383 

••  Certainly  not:  he  would  not  have  taken  it/'  negatived  the 
second.  Lady  Dorenavant,  with  a  certain  contempt.  "The 
Foreign  seals  now — ' ' 

"Oh,  no,"  dissented  her  adversary;  "we  should  have 
twenty  wars  on  our  hands  in  as  many  weeks  with  his  brusque, 
brief  dispatches.  They  would  be  very  Napoleonic;  but  he 
would  say  to  the  Pope,  '  You  belong  to  the  past:  off  with 
you!'  and  would  write  to  France,  '  We  hate  you,  and  you  hate 
us:  why  mince  the  matter?'  He  would  not  be  conducive  to 
European  harmony." 

Lady  Dorenavant,  a  still  brilliant  matron,  gave  a  lazy  gest- 
ure of  dissent. 

"  Is  that  all  you  know  of  him?  In  the  Foreign  Office,  or 
anywhere  else,  he  would  always  do  just  the  thing  that  needed 
to  be  done,  and  no  more.  He  can  keep  Darshampton  in  good 
humor;  it  is  more  unmaiiageable,  on  the  whole,  than  Europe." 

"  I  agree  with  you,"  murmured  a  third  fair  Chevreuse  of 
politics.  "  I  believe  he  would  hold  the  Foreign  portfolio  and 
hold  it  well.  He  would  keep  peace;  but  there  would  be  no 
fog  in  his  correspondence,  and  no  beating  about  the  bush. 
"What  he  had  to  say  would  be  said  briefly,  firmly,  and  with  in- 
finite tact.     The  only  pity  is — he  was  nobody." 

"  Every  one  has  forgotten  that  by  now,"  said  Lady  Clydes- 
more,  with  a  curl  of  disdain  on  her  thoughtful  lips,  that  was 
followed  by  a  darker  and  more  bitter  shadow  where  she  sat  in 
the  shelter  of  the  curled  tropic  leaves. 

"No;  it  is  never  forgotten  and  never  forgiven,"  said  the 
last  speaker,  with  delicate  disdain;  for  she  was  a  very  keen 
wit,  a  very  truthful  temper,  and  despised  her  own  party  now 
and  then  not  a  little.  "  But,  you  know  as  well  as  I,  we  can't 
afford  to  appear  to  remember  it.     He  is  so  much  to  us." 

"  I  do  iiot  see  there  is  anything  to  be  forgotten,"  said  Lady 
Dorenavant,  who  piqued  herself  on  being  positively  "  Eed  " 
in  her  political  tastes  in  theory,  but  who  would  nevertheless 
never  have  set  foot  again  in  any  house  in  which  the  order  of 

Erecedence  had  been  violated  in  going  down  to  dinner  and  the 
eraldic  dignities  of  her  house  been  offended  in  any  iota  of 
ceremonial.  "  That  is  such  a  miserable  monopoly,  such  an 
old-world  opticism,  to  adhere  so  much  to  lineage.  F'or  my 
own  part,  I  never  forget  that  the  greatest  men  of  all  nations 
have  sprung  from  the  people.  Life  is  too  earnest,  truth  too 
broad,  for  these  insignilicant  class-distinctions." 

"  Quite  so,  dear,"  yawned  her  pretty,  inconsequent  an- 
tagonist.    "  We  all  say  that  nowadays.     But  why  aren't  you 


3R4  CHANDOS. 

true  to  yonr  theory?     Why  clon^t  you  let  Adine  marry  poor 
Langdon?" 

"That  is  absnrcl!"  said  the  socialist  j^eeress — a  little 
nettled;  for  no  one  likes  to  be  twitted  with  turning  theories 
into  action.  "  Xobody  is  talking  of  marriage:  we  are  speak- 
ing of  men  who  attain  power  without  the  hereditary  right  to 
it.  1  confess,  I  admire  self-made  men;  there  is  such  a  rugged 
grandeur  about  the  mere  idea  of  all  they  have  contested  with 
and  conquered." 

Which  was  a  beautiful  absence  of  all  prejudice  on  her  lady- 
ship's part,  slightly  nullified  iu  its  weight  by  the  fact  that  she 
had  a  month  before  half  broken  her  daughter's  heart,  and 
spent  all  her  most  bitter  and  deadly  courtliness  of  insolence 
and  opprobrium  on  that  daughter's  lover — a  great  artist,  who 
had  had  the  presumption  to  think  that  his  fine  celebrity  and 
his  gallant  love  might  mate  him  with  the  young  azure-eyed 
aristocrat,  and  in  return  had  been  stoned  and  pierced  with  a 
great  lady's  polished  insults. 

"  Besides,"  she  jjursued,  now  on  her  favorite  theme,  "  you 
can  not  call  liim  a  self-made  man:  he  was  always  among  us, 
always  at  the  best  houses,  entered  Parliament  at  a  very  good 
age,  has  always  known  everybody  and  been  seen  everywhere. 
I  remember  his  first  speech  so  well!  It  was  short — he  had  too 
much  tact  to  detain  the  benches  long,  but  so  pithy,  so  trench- 
ant, so  precise  to  the  purpose,  so  admirably  uttered!  I  remem- 
bered saying  to  poor  Sir  James  that  very  night,  '  See  if  I  am 
not  right;  we  shall  have  a  recruit  well  worth  studying  and  re- 
taining there.'     And  he  did  see  I  was  right." 

She  nestled  herself  among  her  soft  cushions  with  complacent 
remembrance;  she  had  been  the  first  to  discern  the  faint 
beams  of  the  rising  sun. 

"What  that  man  has  done  since  then!"  murmured  the 
Countess  of  Clydesmore,  rather  to  herself  unconsciously  than 
to  her  companions. 

At  that  instant  a  hand  thrust  aside  the  sacred  velvet  cur- 
tain before  the  open  folding-doors  that  rarely  was  drawn  aside 
save  by  the  few  privileged  comers  who  were  made  free  of  the 
guild:  the  subject  of  their  words  and  thoughts  entered  the 
boudoir.  He  was  just  then  a  guest  for  an  autumnal  week  at 
Lilliesford. 

Lady  Clydesmore  did  not  look  up;  a  slight  gloom  came  over 
her  face,  and  the  abrupt  rapidity  of  entrance  jarred  her  nerves. 
Lady  Dorc'navaut  smiled  a  bland  welcome. 

-*  An,  Mr.  Trevenna,  you  come  to  enliven  us!"    He  laughed 


CHAKDOS.  385 

a  little  as  he  tossed  himself  down  into  a  low  easy-chair  beside 
his  aristocratic  champion. 

"  You  have  faith  in  my  powers  of  enlivening?  Well,  so 
have  T,  I  think.  I  actually  once  contrived  to  make  a  royal 
dinner  only  half  as  dull  as  a  sermon!" 

"  You  happy  fellow!"  murmured  the  young  duke.  "  What 
specific  have  you  against  dullness?'* 

"  Don't  know,"  answered  the  popular  politician,  shrugging 
his  shoulders  and  hitting,  as  he  usually  did,  the  truth — "  ex- 
cejjt  it  may  be  that  I  never  feel  a  dull  dog  myself." 

"  But  then  that's  just  it:  how  is  it  you  don't?" 

*'Ah!  that  is  just  it.  Can't  say.  Natural  constitution,  I 
suppose,  and  a  good  digestion;  good  conscience,  if  you  like  it 
better — that  sounds  more  pretty  and  poetic.  Though  really, 
as  a  practical  fact,  I  believe  it's  a  good  deal  easier  to  carry  a 
murder  comfortably  on  one's  soul  than  a  lord  mayor's  dinner 
comfortably  on  one's  chest." 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  have  tried  both,"  said  the  languid, 
disdainful  voice  of  his  hostess  from  the  shadow. 

"  So  I  have.  I've  eaten  corporation  turtle,  and  I've  mur- 
dered many  a  little  Bill — hopeless  little  Bills  that  scarcely  saw 
the  light  before  I  strangled  them.  But  I  can't  say  their 
slaughter  was  heavy  to  bear,  whatever  the  debate  upon  them 
might  be.  Lady  Dorenavant,  what  are  you  reading?  Any- 
thing good?" 

"An  old  acquaintance  of  yours,"  she  said,  handing  him 
the  book. 

He  had  read  it,  but  he  turned  the  leaves  over  as  though  he 
had  not,  lifting  his  eyebrows  where  he  lay  back  luxuriously 
coiled  in  the  depths  of  a  couch. 

"  Ah!  poor  Chandos!  Frightens  people  dreadfully,  doesn't 
it?  Sort  of  Buddhism — eh?  subhmated  Cartesiauism,  in- 
tended for  the  thirtieth  century  or  thereabouts?  Makes  a 
science  of  history,  and  gives  a  sinecure  to  Deity!  Believes  in 
other  worlds,  but  smashes  Providence  as  a  used-up  Bens  ex 
marhina;  utterly  contemns  the  body,  and  isn't  very  clear 
about  the  soul.     That's  the  style,  isn't  it?" 

The  grand  dark  eyes  of  Lady  Clydesmore  loomed  on  him 
from  her  corner  in  the  shadow. 

"  You  travesty  what  you  have  not  read,"  she  said,  slowly 
and  curtly.     "  The  book  is  a  great  book." 

"  Sorry  to  hear  it!  It  won't  bring  him  a  shilling,  then. 
As  for  writing  all  those  heterodox  before-your-time  specula- 
tions and  j^hilosophies,  it's  the  sheerest  madness,  if  you  want 
to  live  by  what  you  write,  as  of  course  he  does.     If  you're  an 


3SG  CHAKDOS. 

unfrocked  priesb,  now,  or  a  curate  without  a  chance  of  pronio« 
tion,  it's  all  very  well  to  do  it:  you  have  a  piquauce  about  you 
from  having  stoned  your  own  gods;  and  if  you  can't  be  a  suc- 
cess, 10  s  just  as  well  to  go  in  for  the  other  side  tofo  corde,  and 
come  out  in  full  bloom  a  martyrdom.  But  just  to  write  a 
'  great  book/  and  look  to  posterity  to  reward  you — mercy 
alive!  I'd  as  soon  sow  corn  in  the  sea,  or  try  to  get  a  ladder 
to  the  stars!" 

"  I  can  believe  you,'*  said  the  voice  of  his  hostess,  with  that 
veiled  bitterness  still  in  it;  "  no  one  would  accuse  you  of  do- 
ing anything  without  the  certainty  of  present  reward. " 

He  laughed  with  the  charming  good  humor  wn'th  which  he 
always  won  over  the  most  sullen  and  angry  mob,  sooner  or 
later,  to  his  side. 

"No:  I  don't  '  go  in  for  the  angels.'  Too  unsubstantial 
and  too  solemn  for  me.  Where's  the  use  of  working  for  pos- 
terity? A  comet  may  have  sent  the  earth  fizzing  into  space 
before  it's  fifty  years  older.  Besides,  I've  an  English  prejudice 
that  real,  sensible,  practical  work  deserves  its  reward  and  gets 
it.  I  tiiink  in  the  long  run  all  things  bring  in  their  net  value. 
It's  only  the  mortified  vanity  of  those  who  carry  bad  goods  to 
market  that  makes  them  start  the  hypothesis  that  they're  un- 
salable because  they  are  too  superior." 

"  They  may  be  right  sometimes,  if  they  say — because  they 
are  too  true  to  be  welcome,"  said  the  Countess  of  Clydesmore, 
in  that  slow,  languid,  yet  almost  acrid  tone  with  which  she 
had  spoken  throughout  from  her  distant  nook  of  shadow. 

'*  Oh,  yes,"  he  laughed,  carelessly  toying  with  the  book  he 
still  held.  "  Chandos,  here,  tells  a  good  deal  too  much  truth: 
they'd  forgive  him  his  unorthodoxy  sooner  than  they'd  forgive 
him  his  accuracy.  All  men  are  candid  when  they're  in  ex- 
tremis and  have  nothing  left  to  lose — bankrupts,  beggars, 
moribunds,  authors  in  the  Index,  and  thieves  in  the  Old 
Bailey!" 

"  You  are  complimentary  to  authors,"  laughed  Lady 
Dorenavant. 

"  Never  liked  them,"  returned  the  successful  politician. 
"  They  are  so  unpractical.  If  they  write  fiction,  it's  puppets; 
if  history,  it's  prejudice;  if  ])hiIosophy,  it's  cobwebs;  if 
science,  it's  mares'  nests:  let  them  take  what  they  will,  it 
must  be  more  or  less  moonshine.  Now,  if  I  ever  wrote  a 
book—" 

'*  What  should  it  be?"  asked  his  fair  partisan. 

"  Well,  it  should  be  what  everybody  should  like — a  true 
contemporary  '  Chrouique  Scandeleuse,'  such   as   his   secret 


CHANDOS.  387 

police  summed  up  to  Loiiis  Quinze,  every  day,  of  the  doings 
of  Paris.  How  it  would  sell — specially  with  a  tag  of  religion 
to  finish,  and  a  fine  blue-light  of  repentance  burning  for  the 
British  public  at  the  end  of  every  wickedness!  It  would  sell 
by  millions  where  this  book,  that  my  Lady  Clydesmore  says 
is  a  '  great  book,^  sells  by  tens. " 

The  languid  grandes  dames  laughed  softly;  it  was  tlie 
fashion  to  admire  and  to  quote  all  he  said  as  "so  infinitely 
humorous,"  "so  admirably  original!"  Yet  beneath  the  art- 
bloom  oil  her  cheek  Lady  Dorenavant  felt  herself  turn  pale. 
There  was  a  family  secret  of  a  terrible  shame  to  her  house, 
that  had  been  buried,  as  they  had  thought,  five  fathoms  deep, 
■where  none  could  disinter  it;  and  John  Trevenna  had  found  it 
out,  and  had  let  tlieni  learn  that  he  had  done  so.  All  the 
■weight  of  her  vast  influence,  of  her  j)olitical  favor,  had  been 
thrown  into  the  scale  many  years  gone  by  to  purchase  silence: 
yet  she  had  never  felt  secure  that  her  bribe,  magnificent  and 
mighty  in  profit  though  it  was,  had  availed.  There  is  no  sign 
and  seal  to  those  bargains,  and  the  tacit  bond  may  any  day  be 
broken  by  the  stronger  side. 

"A  religious  'tag!'  What  a  word!"  smiled  a  radiant 
blonde.     "  I  thought  you  were  never  irreverent  now?" 

"  Never,"  he  responded,  promptly.  "'  It  never  does  to  be 
unorthodox  in  a  country  where  the  Church  is  a  popular 
prejudice — I  beg  pardon;  I  meant  bulwark.  I  bad  my  un- 
regenerated  days,  I  know,  when  I  didn't  go  to  church;  but  I 
hadn't  heard  grace  said  before  dinner  by  an  archbishop  then; 
that  does  more  than  anything,  I  think,  toward  correcting  one's 
soul,  if  it's  a  little  adverse  tendency  toward  cooling  the  soup. 
You  don't  talk  Pantheism  or  Positivism  when  you've  once 
stayed  ■with  a  primate.  But  I  didn't  come  to  chatter:  I  vent- 
ured into  this  sanctum  sanctorum  to  show  you  these. " 

With  which  he  unfolded  some  afternoon  letters  he  had  in  his 
hand,  and,  lounging  comfortably  in  that  velvet  nest  by  the 
side  of  tlie  queen  and  priestess  of  his  own  especial  party,  'went 
deep  with  her  into  their  various  contents  and  their  news  polit- 
ical— as  deep,  at  least,  as  he  chose  to  go.  lie  always  satisfied 
his  confidantes  that  they  knesv  as  much  as  he  did;  but  he 
always  spread  the  surface:  lie  never  showed  the  whole.  There 
is  not  an  art  so  delicate  and  so  full  of  use  as  that  art  of  ap- 
parent frankness:  it  conciliated  the  very  women  who  had  been 
his  deadliest  foes,  and,  while  they  imagined  themselves  his 
allies,  they  became  at  his  fancy  his  dupes.  They  were  his 
scouts,  his  sharpshooters,  his  skirmishers,  his  spies,  those 
dainty,  haughty,  liigh-bred  jiatrician  chatelaines;  they  fetched 


388  CHANDOS. 

and  carried,  they  parried  and  bribed,  for  him;  they  j^layed 
into  his  hands,  and  tliey  worked  out  his  will;  and  they  never 
knew  it,  but  all  the  while  thought  themselves  condescending 
with  a  superb  grace  and  tact  to  secure  a  serviceable  recruit, 
and  guessed  no  more  the  remorseless  and  vulgar  uses  to  which 
he  turned  them  than  the  suu  guesses  the  use  that  photography 
makes  of  his  glory  when  it  turns  his  rays  into  detectives  and 
brings  them  as  witness  in  law-courts,  lie  stayed  there  some 
twenty  minutes;  the  boudoir  was  not  seldom  a  cabinet  coun- 
cil-room in  the  recesses,  and  all  the  ladies  in  it  now  were  for 
him  and  were  with  him.  He  never  sought  women — not  a 
whit;  they  must  come  to  him,  must  need  him,  and  must 
serve  him;  but  he  knew  how  to  turn  to  account  better  than 
any  man  living  all  their  armory  of  slender,  invincible, 
damascened  weapons — the  better  because  no  glance  of  lustrous 
eyes  ever  had  power  to  quicken  his  j^ulse  one  beat,  because 
the  softest  voice  that  ever  wooed  his  ear  never  had  charm  to 
lull  his  wisdom  for  a  second.  Love  was  a  trumpery  nonsense 
that  never  could  enter  the  virile  sagacity  of  Trevenna's  mind. 
And  now,  when  he  had  done  with  the  ladies,  he  went  to  play 
rackets  with  the  young  Lord  Lilliesford,  the  eldest  son  of  the 
house. 

He  knew  how  to  do  this  sort  of  thing — how  to  enter  with 
infinite  glee  into  a  boy^s  sports,  yet  how  never  to  risk  losing 
the  faith  he  had  impressed  men  with  in  his  unerring  acumen 
and  jDractical  talents.  Every  one  felt  the  contagion  of  the 
bright,  vivacious,  untiring  good  humor  which  could  make  a 
leading  politician  love  a  lark  like  an  Etonian;  and  it  was  not 
assumed  with  him.  He  was  essentially  full  of  animal  spirits, 
and  never  had  to  simulate  them  by  any  hazard.  It  was  one 
of  the  chief  secrets  of  his  social  success:  men  who  might  have 
feared  him  or  mistrusted  him  whilst  they  were  with  him  in  the 
political  field  lost  their  awe  or  their  distrust,  and  could  not 
choose  but  warm  to  him  when  they  saw  him  taking  a  blind 
fence  "like  a  good  'un,'^  telling  mischievous  stories  in  a 
smoking-room,  or  heartily  snowballing  public-school  lads  on 
the  terraces  of  some  famous  house. 

"  Look  at  him  playing  with  that  boy!  What  a  caj^ital  fel- 
low he  is!  Goes  in  for  it,  by  George,  as  if  he  hadn't  anything 
else  to  live  for!"  said  a  peer.  Lord  Dallerstone,  as  he  watched 
the  science  with  which  Trevenna  caught  the  ball  on  his  racket. 
He  had  ceased  to  be  "  Charlie,"  and  had  left  far  behind  him 
the  troubles  of  his  F.  0.  days  of  dandyism  and  "  dead  money;" 
but  he  had  never  forgotten  Trevenna's  aid,  and  did  him  in 
repayment  many  a  public  service  with  most  loyal  gratitude. 


CHANDOS.  389 

The  popular  favorite  had  always  had  the  knack  of  so  throwing 
his  crumbs  upon  the  waters  that  they  returned  to  him  in  whole 
quarterns  of  wheaten  bread. 

Lady  Clydesniore  gave  a  careless  glance  at  the  game,  then 
turned  away  with  an  imperceptible  shudder.  The  haughty 
grace  of  her  young  son,  so  like  her  own,  had  caught  her  eyes, 
and  she  held  him  in  a  bitter  aversion  for  his  father's  sake. 

Not  that  Lord  Clydesmore  was  anything  save  a  gentle  and 
generous  husband;  he  was,  indeed,  nervously  afraid  of  his 
wife.  But  she  had  let  dislike  gather  and  gather  in  her  toward 
him,  till  the  earl,  always  irritably  timorous  of  her,  scarce 
ever  now  entered  her  presence  in  solitude.  She  would  have 
condemned  with  all  the  icy  severity  of  a  patrician  matron  the 
errors  of  a  too  ardent  passion,  the  devoted  self-abandonment 
of  an  uncalculating  love;  but  slie  placed  no  check  on  the 
silent,  unseen  indulgence  of  an  intense  abhorrence,  that  made 
her  husband  feel  liiie  a  whipped  hound  under  the  lash  of  her 
unuttered  scorn,  and  her  children  shrink  from  the  frozen 
apathy  of  her  fair  face. 

"  There  are  serious  complications,"  said  the  earl,  musingly, 
after  a  lengthened  conversation  with  his  guest,  in  a  ride  which 
had  succeeded  to  the  rackets.  His  party  did  not  altogether 
relish  union  with  the  Darshampton  representative,  but  they 
were  glad  of  his  alliance  and  dared  not  brook  his  opposition. 

"  I  don't  see  anything  that  need  disturb  us,"  said  Tre- 
venna,  carelessly.  He  made  no  solemn  mysteries  of  his  polit- 
ical views;  he  always  showed  his  cards  frankly — as  frankly  as 
the  Greek  shows  them  to  the  watching  galerie  when  he  knows 
the  marks  upon  the  backs  of  them  are  only  to  be  traced  by 
his  own  eye.  "  On  the  contrary,  when  the  House  meets,  we 
shall  have  a  good  working  majority  that,  well  handled,  should 
keep  us  in  for  years.  If  there  be  no  internal  dissensions 
among  us,  there  "can  be  positively  nothing  that  can  unseat  us 
for  sessions,  unless  very  unlooked-for  contingencies  arise.  ■ 
You  know  we've  such  a  good  cry — we're  all  for  the  people!" 

He  laughed  a  little  as  he  said  it.  To  Trevenna's  acute 
mind,  there  was  always  a  good  bit  of  absurdity  in  the  political 
dance  of  his  huratJini,  and  while  ho  used  his  marionnettes 
with  all  the  gravity  needful,  he  could  not  help  being  tickled 
at  the  gaping  national  audience  which  believed  in  them  and 
never  spied  out  the  strings. 

"Their  interests,  indeed,  are  always  first  at  my  heart," 
said  the  earl,  who  was  in  the  ministry  himself,  was  a  strict 
Churchman,    and    was    considered    a    great    philanthropist. 


390  CRAWDOS. 

"  The  country  trusts    no    one  better  than  yourself:  in  real 
truth,  there  are  few,  if  any,  to  whom  it  owes  more." 

*'  You  do  me  much  honor  by  such  an  opinion,'^  bowed  Tre- 
venna,  who  managed  the  noble  lord  as  he  liked.  "  It  is  my 
highest  ambition  to  serve  the  nation  to  the  best  of  my  insig- 
nificant powers;  but  meanwhile  I  am  quite  content  to  yield 
the  pas  to  men  of  your  rank  and  weight." 

"  Sensible  fellow,"  thought  the  lord;  "  so  moderate  I  Who 
can  be  so  blind  as  to  accuse  him  of  Socialism?'^ 

''  Fro  me  is  more  my  cry  than  j}ro  pairia.  I'm  a  selfish 
map/'  laughed  Trevenna,  with  that  confession  of  egotism 
which  sounded  so  charmingly  frank.  "  I  don't  pretend  to  be 
among  the  '  idealists, '  Apropos,  have  you  read  that  new  book 
by  Chandos?     The  countess  thinks  very  highly  of  it." 

The  earl  reddened:  he  had  never  ceased  to  be  jealous  of  the 
man  he  hud  supplanted — of  the  man  he  knew  his  wife  still 
loved. 

"/never  read  his  books,"  he  said,  frif,ndly.  "The  im- 
morality of  his  early  life  finds  meet  issue  in  the  irreligion  of 
his  later  years.  His  influence  js  widely  fatal.  I  am  happy  to 
think  your  acquaintance  with  him  has  been  long  at  an  end"." 

"  Oh,  we  were  old  comrades  in  my  wild  and  unconverted 
days.  _  I  should  never  have  dropped  him,  indeed,  for  old 
acquaintance'  sake;  but  years  ago — time  of  his  crash— he  be- 
haved ungratefully  to  me,  very  badly,  on  my  word— after  I'd 
been  slaving  my  life  out  for  him,  too.  I'm  not  a  sensitive 
man — never  was;  but  that  cut  me  up  a  good  deal." 

"  Ah!  I  am  not  surprised  to  hear  it.  It  is  singular  that 
great  genius  is  almost  always  companioned  with  so  much  de- 
pravity I" 

Trevenna  laughed. 
Thank  God,  he  didn't  give  me  genius — only  talent. 
Talent  wears  well,  genius  wears  itself  out;  talent  drives  a  snug 
brougham  in  fact,  genius  drives  a  sun-chariot  in  fancy:  talent 
keeps  to  earth  and  fattens  there,  genius  soars  to  the  empvrean 
to  get  picked  by  every  kite  that  flies.  Talent's  the  port  and 
the  venison,  genius  the  seltzer  and  souffles,  of  life.  The  man 
who  has  talent  sails  successfully  on  the  top  of  the  wave,  the 
man  with  genius  beats  himself  to  pieces,  fifty  to  one,  on  the 
first  rock  ahead.  Ah  I  there's  our  very  man  of  genius's  lost 
Clarencieux.  Just  see  the  tops  of  the  towers.  Would  you 
mind  riding  over?" 

The  earl  gave  a  hurried  though  bland  dissent. 

"Pardon  me:  pray  ride  there  if  you  wish;  but  I  have  promised 
to  visit  a  tenant  who  is,  I  sadly  fear,  dying.     We  are  close  to 


CHANDOS.  391 

his  farm  now.  Call  for  me  as  you  come  back.  The  poor  man 
begged  to  see  me;  and  there  are  high  and  holy  duties  which 
one  must  not  neglect,  even  when  they  are  irksome/' 

"High  and  holy  fiddlesticks,  my  friend!  You're  a  very 
poor  hyiiocrite,  but  you're  a  very  good  card/'  thought  Tre- 
venna,  as  they  parted.  Lord  Olydesmore,  with  his  irre- 
proachable moral  character,  great  wealth,  atid  solid  standing 
in  public  life,  was  one  of  his  prize  puppets  in  the  ballet  that 
he  made  all  his  fantoccini  dance,  while  he  turned  the  handle 
of  the  barrel-organ  to  what  tune  he  would. 

Trevenna's  hatred  was  class-hatred.     Could  he  have  fol- 
lowed the  bent  of  his  mind,  he  would  have  had  as  little  scruple 
and  as  much  zest  in  the  sweeping  away  of  the  Optimates  as 
Marius  had  in  their  slaughter.     He  would  have  held  back  his 
hand  from  their  extermination  as  little  as  did  the  ruthless  old 
plebeian,  hating  them  as  Marius  hated  the  men  who  had  worn 
the  golden  amulet  and  the  purple  robe  whilst  he  was  following 
the  plowshare  over  the  heavy  clods  of  the  tillage.     This  ani- 
mosity was  strong  in  Trevenna;  nothing  could  cool  it,  nothing 
soften  it;  success  in  no  way  changed  it,  for  in  success  he  saw 
that  these,  his  born  foes  as  he  thought  them,  dreaded  him,  but 
detested  him.     The  bitterness  was  oddly  woven  in  with  the 
brightness  and  the  vigor  of  his  nature,  otherwise  too  healthy 
and  too  well  balanced  to  cherish  passion;  but  it  was  deathless 
with  him.     Still,  he  was  too  acute  a  man  to  let  this  appear  in 
his  public  or  private  life:  he  appreciated  too  ably  the  temper 
of  his  times  and  his  country  to  allow  this  wholesale  enmity  to 
be  betrayed.     Trevenna  would  have  enjoyed  to  be  the  leader 
of  a  great  revolution;  but  he   had  no  ambition  to  remain  a 
popular  demagogue  in  an  anti-revolutionary  nation.     He  con- 
sidered  it  very  unpractical  and  unprofitable,   and,   while  he 
cared  not  one  whit  for  all   the  creeds  and  principles  in  the 
world,  he  cared  very  heartily  for  the  solid  advantages  and  the 
real  t)Ower  that  he  set  himself  to  win.    .The  pure  impersonal 
longing  of  a  Vergniaud  or  a  Buzot,  the  sublime  devotion  of 
a  Washington  or  a  Hampden,  were  utterly  incomprehensible 
to  him.    Trevenna  was  too  thoroughly  p]nglish  to  have  a  touch 
of  "  idealism,"  and  not  to  measure  all  things,  principles  in- 
cluded, by  the  pocket,     'i'herefore  he  rushed  into  no  extreme; 
but,  whilst  at  Darshampton  he  went  as  near  socialism  and 
communism  as  was  needful  to  please  his  auditors,  and  went 
into  them,  moreover,  with  a  racy  rel.sh,  he  was  careful  to  do 
and  to  express  nothiiii^  which  should  terrify  the  bulk  of  the 
Commons  or  disqualify  iiim   in   the  country's  view  from  the 
tenure  of  office.     Had   he  flung  himself  headlong  into  the 


392  ^  CHANDOS. 

cause  of  the  people  and  iuto  the  service  of  a  republican  code, 
he  would  have  been  a  far  better  and  more  honest  man  than  he 
was;  but  he  would  not  have  been  so  clever,  and  he  would  not, 
assuredly,  have  been  so  successful.  He  knew  what  he  was 
about  too  well  to  tie  himself  to  a  principle;  the  only  principle 
he  ever  consistently  followed  was  his  own  interest.  He  was  a 
man  who  could  tell  the  temper  of  the  hoar  he  lived  in  to  a 
miracle,  and  adapt  himself  to  it  with  a  marvelous  tact  and 
advantage.  They  who  do  this  are  not  the  highest  order  of 
public  men,  but  they  are  invariably  the  most  successful  and 
most  popular.  If  a  genuine  loyalty  to  any  creed  could  once 
have  fairly  taken  hold  on  him,  it  would  have  gone  far  to  re- 
deem him;  but  it  could  not.  His  hate  was  strong  against  an 
order,  certainly;  but  his  solitary  creed  was  a  very  simple  one 
— his  own  self-advancement. 

He  rode  now  by  himself,  on  a  ride  that  he  usually  took  when- 
ever he  was  staying  at  Lilliesford:  he  rode  toward  Clarencieux. 
A  few  miles  of  fair  speed  brought  him  within  sight  of  the 
magnificence  of  the  building,  with  the  glow  of  the  sun  on  its 
innumerable  windows,  and  the  upward -stretching  masses  of 
the  rising  woods  at  its  back.  It  v/as  grand,  historic,  inex- 
pressibly beautiful  in  the  decline  of  the  day,  with  the  golden 
haze  over  its  dark  sweep  of  endless  woodland,  and  the  rush  of 
water  beneath  the  twilight  of  the  boughs,  the  only  sound  on 
the  air.  A  stranger  coming  thus  upon  it  would  have  paused 
involuntarily  at  the  solemnity  of  its  splendor  of  sea  and  land, 
of  hill  and  vale:  Trevenna  checked  his  horse,  and  gazed  at  it 
with  a  smile. 

"  '  The  glory  has  departed,  and  his  place  shall  know  him  no 
more,*''  he  muttered.  "  How  scriptural  I  grow!  Ah,  he's 
gone  foreverl  And  /  could  buy  that  now;  I  will  buy  it,  too, 
just  to  cut  the  forests  down,  and  turn  the  pictures  to  the  wall, 
and  send  the  last  marquis's  coronet  to  the  smelting-shop.  He 
is  gone  forever,  and  I  come  here  as  a  Cabinet  minister.  Venge- 
ance is  a  good  Madeira:  it  gets  mellower  by  keeping.  There 
is  nothing  on  earth  so  sweet,  except  its  twin' — success!'* 

Seventeen  years  had  gone  by  since  he  had  first  taken  his 
vengeance;  but  whenever,  in  the  full  and  rapid  whirl  of  his 
busy  life,  he  had  time  to  remember  and  to  look  back — which 
was  but  rarely — it  was  sweeter  than  of  old,  even  to  him — 
deeper,  richer,  fuller  of  flavor,  as  it  were,  like  the  wine  with 
which  he  compared  it.  The  further  his  own  ascent  bore  him 
up  to  the  heights  of  wealth  and  power,  the  keener  was  the 
pleasure  with  which  he  could  look  on  Clarencieux.  There  had 
been  a  woman-like  malignity  in  the  jealousy  he  had  once  felt 


CHANDOS.  393 

for  its  owner;  there  was  a  woman-like  avidity  in  the  triumph 
with  which  he  now  gazed  at  the  stately  pile  where  he  had  used 
to  be  a  nameless  and  a  penniless  man,  where  he  now  stood  a 
successful  and  ambitious  victor,  while  its  last  lord  was  exiled 
from  his  inheritance  and  forced  down  into  bitterness  and 
poverty. 

A  laborer  near  him  was  working  at  a  sunken  fence  in  the 
deer-forest.  The  man  straightened  his  back,  and  shaded  his 
eyes,  and  looked  at  him,  knowing  his  face. 

Trevenna,  always  communicative,  and  always  good-natured- 
ly familiar  with  the  working-classes — it  was  a  part  of  his  stock 
in  trade — nodded  to  him. 

"  Fine  day,  my  good  fellow.  Have  you  an  easy  time  of  it 
on  these  lands?'"" 

"Main  and  easy,  sir, ^' answered  the  man.  thrusting  his 
spade  into  the  soil  with  his  heel,  and  standing  at  leisure  for  a 
talk.     "  There's  naught  to  complain  of  hereabouts." 

"  Glad  to  hear  it,"  said  Trevenna;  though  he  thought  to 
himself,  ''if  everybody  gave  your  answer,  where  the  deuce 
would  all  politics  and  oitr  trade  be?"  "  So  you're  all  content, 
are  you,  under  the  French  due?" 

The  hedger  and  ditcher  took  his  spade  up  with  some  clods 
of  earth  on  it,  turned  them  thoughtfully,  as  though  there 
were  consolation  in  the  act,  patted  them,  and  looked  up  again. 
"  The  duke's  a  good  master,  and  a  free  giver — I  ain't  a-saying 
a  word  agen  him;  but — " 

"  But  what?  What  else  the  dickens  can  you  want,  my 
man?" 

The  laborer  lowered  his  voice,  and  uncovered  his  head. 
"  Sir,  vve  want  him," 

Trevenna's  teeth  crushed  in  a  snarl  like  an  angry  dog's. 
"  Him?     Whom?"  he  asked,  with  an  impatient  irritation. 

*'  Him  as  we  have  lost  this  many  year,  sir,"  said  the  man, 
gravely  and  gently,  leaning  his  arms  on  his  spade.  "  We 
ha'n't  a-forgot  him — we  ha'n't.     Not  none  on  us. " 

"  Indeed,  my  good  fellow," laughed  Trevenna,  with  a  petu- 
lant anger  in  him  that  the  exiled  man  should  be  remembered 
even  by  this  laborer  in  the  deer-forest,  "  you  are  uncommonly 
loyal  for  nothing.     He  thought  deuced  little  about  you." 

"  That's  as  may  be,  sir.  He  was  a  gay  gentleman,  and. 
had  many  things  to  please  him,  and  that  like;  but  he  was  a 
good  master  to  the  poor,  and  we  was  proud  on  him,  we  was; 
that.'s  just  it — proud  on  him,"  continued  the  hedger  and 
ditcher,  with  a  steady  resolve  and  a  wistful  regret  commingled. 
*' We  won't  see  his  like  again;  and  the  country- side  ha'n't 


394  CHANDOS. 

been  the  same  since  he  was  took  from  us.  Old  Harold  Gelart, 
he  died  ten  year  and  more  ago;  but  his  death-word  was  foi 
him  as  we  lost.  '  Bring  him  back!'  he  cries;  '  bring  him 
back!'  and  he  looks  wild-like  as  he  says  it,  and  dies." 

The  speaker  stooped  and  thrust  his  spade  afresh  into  the 
rich,  damp  earth:  he  felt  a  choking  in  his  throat.  Trevenna 
thrust  the  box-spur  into  his  horse's  flank,  and  urged  him  for- 
ward with  a  snarl  at  the  beast  for  checking.  It  incensed  him 
that  he  could  not  hurl  down  Chandos  from  this  last  throne  left 
him — the  hearts  and  the  memories  of  his  people. 

The  laborer  looked  up  once  more,  touching  his  hat  with  an 
eager  anxiety.  "  I  beg  pardon,  sir,  but — you  was  his  friend, 
you  were:  can't  you  tell  me?  A 'n't  there  no  hope  we'll  ever 
have  him  back?" 

Trevenna  laughed,  and  threw  him  down  a  half  crown. 

*'  Not  the  faintest,  my  man.  When  you  see  those  towers 
walk  out  and  sit  in  the  sea! — not  till  then.  Beggared  gentle- 
men don't  get  out  of  beggary  quite  so  easily. " 

And  he  rode  on  at  a  hand-gallojD. 

"Mercy!  what  fools  those  clods  are!"  bethought.  **How 
they  remember!  Seventeen  years!  Why,  in  the  world,  there, 
it's  time  enough  for  us  to  recast  Europe,  and  knock  down 
kings,  and  pull  up  old  religions  and  jjlant  new  ones,  and  bury 
whole  generations  and  forget  'em  again,  and  cry,  '  Le  Rei  est 
mort!  Vive  le  Eoi!'  fifty  times  over;  and  here  these  dolts 
under  their  forests  sleep  the  years  away  in  idiocy,  and  dream 
of  a  prodigal  and  a  bankrupt  whom  they  haven't  seen  for  half 
a  life-time!" 

It  incensed  him  that  there  should  remain  to  the  disinherited 
even  such  shadowy  remnant  of  his  forfeited  royalty  as  lingered 
in  the  remembrance  of  these  peasantry.  He  could  not  forgive 
the  throne  that  the  exile  still  held  in  the  hearts  of  his  lost  peo- 
ple. 

One  other,  as  well  as  he,  thought  of  Chandos  in  that  mo- 
ment. The  mistress  of  Lilliesford  sat  alone  in  her  writing- 
cabinet,  and  on  the  chilliness  of  her  face  there  was  the  mourn- 
ful agitation  which  trembles  on  the  cold  surface  of  waters 
when  the  dead  float  below  them.  The  dead  were  rising  now 
beneath  her  icy  calm — dead  words,  dead  days,  dead  love.  In 
her  hand,  just  taken  out  of  a  secret  drawer,  were  some  faded 
letters — tender  notes,  short  and  graceful,  such  as  are  written 
by  those  who  love,  in  days  when  they  meet  well-nigh  every 
hour. 

The  wife  whom  the  world  quoted  for  her  haughty  honor,  her 
unblemished  name,  the  chaste  purity  of  her  proud  life^  looked 


CHANDOS.  395 

on  them  till  her  head  drooped,  and  her  eyes  grew  dim  with  a 
thirsty  pain,  and  her  lips  quivered  as  she  gazed.  She  had  for- 
saken liim;  but  she  knew  now  that  she  had  erred  to  him.  She 
would  have  given  her  life  now  to  have  felt  his  kiss  once  more 
upon  her  lips. 

Though  the  traffic  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  Church,  she 
had  been  in  no  sense  superior  to  any  courtesan  who  sells  her 
beauty  for  men's  gold  when  she  had  sold  her  own  in  barter 
for  the  rank  she  held,  for  the  things  of  wealth  that  were  about 
her,  for  the  possessions  of  a  husband  she  scorned  and  hated. 
And  in  that  moment  of  weakness  she  would  have  given  them 
all  back  for  one  hour  of  the  love  that  she  had  lost. 


CHAPTER  III. 

"  HE   WHO   EJSTDURES   CONQUERS.** 

Ukder  the  deep  leaves  of  Fontainebleau,  in  the  heart  of  the 
forest,  in  the  golden  pomp  of  early  autumn,  when  only  a  few 
trees  were  bronzed  with  the  reddening  flush  of  the  waning 
summer,  there  stood  an  antique  wooden  building,  half  lodge, 
half  chalet,  all  covered  with  the  quaint  floral  and  faun  carv- 
ings of  the  Moyen  Age,  and  buried  away  beneath  dense  oak- 
boughs  and  the  dark  spreading  fans  of  sea-piues.  It  was  old, 
dark,  fantastic,  lonely;  yet  from  under  its  low  peaked  roof 
music  was  floating  out  like  a  Mass  of  Palestrina's  from  within 
a  chamber  dark  and  tranquil  as  an  oratory.  The  musicians 
were  seated  in  the  glow  of  a  western  afternoon  sun,  that  shone 
all  amber  and  crimson  and  mellow  through  the  open  painted 
panes.  They  were  strangely  dissimilar,  yet  bound  together  by 
one  love— their  Art.  The  first  was  a  grand  old  Eoman,  like 
a  picture  of  Bassano;  the  second  was  a  South  German,  with  a 
ifair,  delicate  head,  spiritualized  and  attenuated  as  Schiller's; 
a  third  was  a  little,  nut-brown,  withered,  silent  creature,  ugly 
and  uncouth  as  Caliban;  the  leader  was  a  cripple  with  whose 
name  the  world  had  come  to  associate  the  most  poetic  and 
etbereal  harmonies  that  ever  rebuked  the  lusts  and  the  greed 
of  its  passions  and  cares.  They  were  often  together,  these 
four  brothers  in  art,  and  no  jealousies  ever  stirred  amidst 
them,  though  they  all  served  the  same  mistress;  three  of  them 
implicitly  loved  and  implicitly  followed  the  fourth,  though  he 
never  asked  or  thought  of  mastery,  but  was  still  humble  in  his 
great  powers  as  a  child,  still  thought  the  best  that  he  could 
reach  so  poor  beside  his  dreams  of  excellence.  The  world 
treasured  his   works,  and  paid  lavishly  with  its  gold  for  the 


396  CHANDOS. 

smallest  fragment  of  his  creations,  the  slightest  and  the  briefs 
est  of  his  poems  of  sound;  but  this  brought  him  no  vanity,  no 
self-adoration.  He  worshiped  his  art  too  patiently,  too  per- 
fectly, ever  to  think  himself  more  than  a  poor  interpreter,  at 
his  uttermost,  of  all  the  beauty  that  he  knew  was  in  her. 
Success  makes  many  men  drunk  as  with  eating  of  the  lotus 
lily;  success  only  made  Guido  Lulli  scorn  himself  that  he  could 
not  tell  men  better  all  the  sublime  things  his  art  taught  him. 

Their  music  filled  the  chamber  with  its  glory,  and  that  glory 
flushed  his  face  and  lit  his  eyes  as  it  had  always  power  to  do, 
as  the  world  had  now  seen  it  in  the  moments  of  his  triumph, 
until  it  had  learned  to  know  that  the  feeble  visionary  whom  it 
called  a  fool  was  higher  and  holier  than  it  in  all  its  stirring 
strength  and  wealth.  He  roused  to  life  the  beating  of  its 
purer  heart;  he  led  it  toward  God  better  than  any  priest  or 
creed.  But  he  held  himself  throughout  but  an  unworthy  priest 
of  the  mighty  hierarchy  of  melody;  he  held  himself  but  a 
feeble  exponent  of  all  the  glory,  unseen  of  men,  that  with  his 
dreams  was  opened  to  him.  They  thought  and  called  him 
great;  he  knew  himself  unwise  and  faint  of  utterance  as  a 
young  child. 

Against  the  casement  leaned  one  whom  the  Hebrew  lad 
Agostino  had  likened  in  his  youth  to  i3avid  of  Israel  in  the 
fullness  of  royalty,  when  the  smile  of  women  and  the  sun  of 
Palestine  had  their  fairest  light  for  the  golden-haired,  golden- 
crowned  king;  whom  the  young  Tuscan  Castalia  had  likened 
now  to  David  when  his  royalty  still  was  with  him,  but  when 
the  treachery  of  men  had  eaten  into  his  soul,  and  the  heat 
and  burden  of  battle  darkened  his  sight,  and  the  shadows  of 
night  lengthened  long  in  his  path. 

Chandos  came  here  as  men  in  the  old  monastic  da3's  came, 
war-worn  and  combat-wearied,  into  the  hush  and  the  majesty 
and  the  subdued  color-glow  of  the  abbey  sanctuaries,  to  leave 
their  arms  and  their  foes  without  for  awhile  and  forgotten,  and 
to  lie  down  to  rest  for  a  brief  hour  on  the  peaceful  altars  where 
in  the  silence  they  remembered  God. 

He  was  changed  — utterly  changed;  not  so  much  in  his  face 
or  his  form;  the  beauty  with  which  nature  had  dowered  him 
so  lavishly  could  not  perish,  except  with  death  itself;  and 
though  the  brilliance,  the  carelessness,  the  gay  and  cloudless 
light  which  had  made  painters  take  him  as  the  Sun-god  were 
gone,  the  grave  and  serene  melancholy,  the  deep  and  weary 
thought,  which  weve  upon  his  features  now  shadowed  them  in- 
deed, but  gave  them  a  vet  liigher,  a  yet  grander  cast:  it  had 
the  power  of  Lucretius;  it  had  the  weariness  of  Milton.    Dead 


CHANDOS.  39? 

ill  him  forever,  lost  never  again  to  be  recovered,  were  the 
brightuess,  the  splendor,  the  radiant  and  fearless  luster,  of  his 
early  years:  they  had  been  killed — killed  by  a  merciless  hand 
— and  could  no  more  revive  than  the  slaughtered  can  revive  in 
their  tombs.  Yet  not  wholly  had  calamity  conquered  him; 
and  from  the  black  depths  into  which  misery  had  thrust  him 
to  die  like  a  drowned  dog,  he  had  risen  with  a  force  of  resist- 
ance that  in  some  sense  had  wrung  a  victory  from  the  fate 
that  sought  to  crush  him. 

In  the  old  court  of  the  Rue  du  Temple  he  had  accepted  ad° 
versity,  and  lived  for  the  sake  of  the  honor  of  his  fathers,  of 
the  dignity  of  his  manhood,  of  the  heritage  of  his  genius. 
From  that  hour,  though  he  had  longed  as  the  tortured  long 
for  death  many  a  time,  he  had  never  swerved  from  the  path 
he  had  taken;  in  the  arid,  lifeless,  burning  desert-waste  around 
him  he  had  gone  on,  resolute  and  unbeaten,  wresting  from  its 
very  loneliness  and  barrenness  the  desert-gifts  of  strength  and 
silence.  His  nature  v/as  one  to  loathe  the  burden  of  existence 
unless  existence  were  with  every  breath  enjoyment;  yet  when 
every  breath  was  pain  he  bore  with  it  as  men  whose  tempers 
were  far  stronger  and  more  braced  by  training  might  never 
have  found  ability  to  do — bore  with  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
loftier  things,  the  prouder  powers,  that  would  not  die  in  him, 
and  that  naught  except  dishonor  or  his  own  will  could  slay. 

The  little  gold  given  for  the  silver  collar  had  sufficed  to 
keep  life  in  him  a  few  days;  when  those  were  ended,  he  had 
gone  to  the  house  at  which  the  French  editions  of  his  works 
had  been  produced,  and  asked  the  chiefs  of  it  simply  for  work. 
Perhaps  he  was  greater  when  he  said  that  word  than  he  had 
been  in  all  the  magnificence  of  his  joyous  reign.  The  heads 
of  the  (inn,  generous  and  scholarly  men,  touched  to  more  pity 
than  they  dared  express  (for  so  brief  awhile  ago  they  had 
known  him  as  the  darling  of  the  court  circle,  the  klol  of  Paris 
fashion  and  Paris  aristocracy),  eagerly  gave  what  he  sought — 
classical  work  which,  though  but  the  labors  of  routine  and  of 
compilation,  still  brought  his  thoughts  back  perforce  to  the 
Greek  studies  that  had  ever  been  his  best-beloved  treasuries  of 
meditation  and  of  knowledge,  lie  labored  for  his  bare  sub- 
sistence— for  his  day's  maintenance;  but  the  exertion  brought 
its  reward.  It  gave  him  time  to  breathe,  to  think,  to  collect 
his  elfoi  ts  and  his  energies;  for  his  intellect  seemed  dead,  and 
his  thoughts  numb.  He  wondered  if  it  were  true  that  the 
world  had  told  him  so  brief  a  time  ago  that  he  had  genius. 
Genius! — his  very  brain  seemed  dull  as  lead,  hot  as  jlame.  Yet 
he  took  the  sheer  laborious,  mechanical  work,  and  he  bent 


398  CHANDOS. 

himself  to  it;  he  bound  his  miiifl  to  the  hard  mental  labor  as 
a  galley-slave  is  chained  to  his  oar;  and  he  who  had  never 
known  an  hour's  toil  spent  day  after  day,  month  after  month, 
in  the  thankless,  unremitting  mental  travail.  It  brought  its 
recompense:  his  mind  through  it  regained  its  balance,  his  rea- 
son its  tone;  the  compulsory  exertion  did  for  him  what  noth- 
ing else  coulil.  It  took  him  by  degrees  back  into  that  imper- 
sonal life  which  is  the  surest  consolation  the  world  holds;  it 
revived  the  lost  tastes,  it  reopened  the  deep  scholarship,  that 
even  in  his  gayest  years  had  been  one  of  his  best-loved  pur- 
suits; it  led  him  to  take  refuge  in  those  vast  questions  beside 
which  the  griefs  and  joys  of  life  alike  are  dwarfed — those  re- 
sources of  the  intellect  which  are  the  best  companion  and  the 
truest  friend  of  one  who  has  once  known  them  and  loved  them. 
In  his  past  career  he  had  never  exerted  all  the  powers  that 
nature  had  gifted  him  with;  the  ver}'  facility  of  his  talents 
had  prevented  it,  and  brilliant  trifles  had  rather  been  their 
fruit  than  anything  wider  or  weightier.  Now  in  the  treasuries 
of  study  and  in  the  solace  of  composition  he  alike  found  a 
career  and  a  hope,  an  ambition  and  a  consolation. 

The  ruin  that  had  stripped  him  of  all  else  taught  him  to 
fathom  the  depths  of  his  own  attainments.  He  had  in  him 
the  gifts  of  a  Goethe;  but  it  was  only  under  adversity  that 
these  reached  their  stature  and  bore  their  fruit. 

When  the  world  had  forgotten  for  some  years,  or,  if  it  ever 
remembered  him,  thought  he  had  killed  himself,  it  learned 
this  suddenly  and  with  amazement.  Ilis  name  once  more  be- 
came public — never  jiopular,  but  something  much  higher. 
He  was  condemned,  reviled,  wondered  at,  called  many  bitter 
names;  but  his  thoughts  were  heard,  and  had  their  harvest. 
Aristocratic  as  his  tastes  were,  and  proud  though  he  had  been 
termed,  he  had  always  had  much  that  was  democratic  in  his 
opinions;  for  he  had  ever  measured  men  by  their  minds,  not 
their  stations;  such  freedom  was  in  his  works,  and  they  had 
done  that  for  which  the  song  of  the  Venetian  youths  had 
thankotl  him.  Against  much  antagonism,  and  slowly  in  the 
course  of  time,  he  won  fame.  Kiches  he  never  made;  he  was 
poor  still;  but  he  was  nearer  the  fidfillment  of  the  promise  of 
his  childhood  now,  when  the  chief  sum  of  the  world  was 
against  him,  than  in  the  days  of  his  prosperity,  when  the 
whole  world  lay  at  his  feet.  Happiness  he  had  not;  it  could 
be  with  no  man  who  had  such  losses  ever  in  his  memory  as 
his;  but  some  peace  came  to  him;  a  great  and  a  pure  ambition 
was  his  companion  and  his  consoler,  and  a  grander  element 
was  woven  in  his  character  than  fair  fortune  would  have  evor 


CHANDOS.  399 

brought  to  light.  England  he  never  saw.  The  intercession 
of  his  I'elations  or  his  acquaintance  miglit  with  ease  have  pro- 
cured him  affluent  sinecures;  but  he  would  have  held  it 
degradation  deep  as  shame  to  have  taken  them.  His  cousin 
of  Castlemaine  once  wrote  and  offered  one:  he  simply  de- 
clined it.  By  his  own  folly  his  ruin  had  been  wrought;  by  his 
own  labor  alone  would  he  repel  it  and  endeavor  to  repair  it. 
He  accepted  poverty,  and  lived  in  exile,  associating  with  many 
of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  Europe;  but  into  the  pale  of  the 
fashionable  woi'ld  he  had  once  led  he  never  wandered,  and  iu 
the  palanes  in  which  he  had  once  been  the  idol  of  all  eyes  he 
was  never  seen.  The  friends  of  that  past  time  knew  of  him 
indeed  by  the  intellectual  renown  that  he  had  won,  but  it  was 
very  rarely  that  they  looked  upon  his  face.  Cynic  he  could 
not  grow;  he  did  not  curse  the  world  because  to  him  it  had 
been  base;  he  believed  in  noble  lives  and  stanch  fidelities, 
though  treachery  had  trepanned  and  love  abandoned  him. 
The  bitterness  of  Timon  could  have  no  lodging  with  him;  but 
an  unspeakable  weariness  often  came  on  him. 

He  had  lost  so  much;  and  one  loss — that  of  Clarencieux — 
gnawed  ever  at  his  heart  with  an  unceasing  pang.  There 
were  times  when  he  longed  for  his  perished  happiness  with  the 
passion  with  which  an  exile  longs  for  the  light  of  his  native 
suns. 

He  listened  now  to  the  melodies  that  filled  the  chamber. 
Lulli's  was  the  sole  life  which  had  been  faithful  to  him,  save 
that  of  the  dog,  buried  now  under  Sicilian  orange-boughs,  in 
the  grave  to  which  old  age  had  banished  it,  but  lamented  and 
remembered  with  more  justice  than  many  a  human  friend  is 
regretted  and  mourned.  The  music,  a  new  opera-overture  of 
the  Provencal's,  closed  with  its  noblest  harmonies,  reeling 
through  the  air  like  a  young  Bacchus  ivy-crowned.  Then  it 
stayed  suddenly,  the  hands  that  drew  out  its  charmed  sounds 
pausing  as  moved  by  one  impulse;  three  of  them  bowed  their' 
heads.  "It  will  be  great,"  they  said,  reverently,  adding  no - 
other  word,  and  went  their  way  silently  and  left  the  chamber. 
Guido  Lulli  was  alone  with  his  guest.  The  victorious  radiance, 
the  sovereignty  in  his  own  realms,  that  had  been  on  him  as  he 
called  out  to  existence  tlie  supremacy  of  his  own  creations, 
faded  into  the  hesitating,  doubting  hope  of  a  child  who  seeks 
the  praise  of  a  voice  he  loves. 

"And  you,  monseigneur?"  he  said,  appealingly.  "Can 
you  say,  too,  it  will  be  great?" 

Chandos  lifted  his  head. 

"You  ask  mc,  LuHi?     The  world  has  long  told  you,  and 


400  CHANDOS. 

truly,  that  you  can  give  it  nothing  that  is  not  so.  You  sur- 
pass yourself  here;  it  will  be  noble  music — nobler  even  than 
anything  of  yours/' 

The  eyes  of  the  cripple  beamed.  The  world  had  long 
crowned  him.  with  the  Delpliica  laurus,  yet  he  still  came  with 
the  humility  of  a  child  to  receive  the  laurel  he  loved  best  in 
the  words  of  his  old  master. 

"  The  world  may  have  told  me,  monsigneur^  but  that  were 
nothing  unless  you  spoke  also.  What  would  the  world  have 
ever  known  or  heeded  of  me  without  your  aid?  Known  of  me, 
do  I  say?  It  is  not  that  I  heed;  it  is  my  works.  I  shall  pass 
away,  but  they  will  endure;  my  body  will  go  to  corruption, 
but  they  will  have  immortality.  I  thank  God  and  you,  not 
the  world,  that  what  is  great  in  me  will  not  perish  with  what 
is  weak  and  vile.'' 

"  I  understand  you;  others  might  not,"  answered  Chandos, 
as  he  looked  at  the  delicate  kindhug  face  of  the  only  man  who 
had  given  him  back  lidelity  and  gratitude — a  face  that  time 
had  changed  in  so  littJe  save  in  the  white  threads  that  gleamed 
among  the  dark  masses  of  hair.  "  Men  prostitute  their  genius 
no\v%  as  the  courtesan  her  beauty;  they  think  little — think 
nothing — of  impersonal  things.  Hypocrisy  l^ays;  they  supply 
it.  Were  blasphemy  the  better  investment,  they  would  trade 
in  it.  You  are  fortunate  in  one  thing;  you  speak  in  a  lan- 
guage that  can  not  be  caviled  at  or  misunderstood." 

"  But  deaf  ears  were  turned  to  it  till,  through  you,  the  dis- 
believers listened.'' 

"  Hush!  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead.  I  do  not  look 
back;  I  wish  that  no  one  should." 

"  I3ut  I  can  not  forget!  Such  debts  as  mine  are  not  scored 
out." 

"  In  your  nature.  Yet  I  served  many  more  than  I  served 
you.     You  are  the  only  one  who  remembers  it." 

He  spoke  without  bitterness;  but  the  words  were  the  more 
profoundly  sad  because  there  was  no  taint  of  acrid  feeling  in 
them.  LuUi  glanced  at  him  with  an  anxious  reverence. 
Though  lie  was  famous  now  in  his  own  art,  and  though  wealth, 
or  what  seemed  so  to  his  simple  tastes  and  needs,  had  come  to 
him  with  the  applause  of  cities  and  the  praise  of  princes  and 
the  renown  of  nations  for  his  music,  he  felt  to  Chandos  the 
same  fond,  faithful  loyalty  and  veneration  as  when  he  had 
been  a  dying  boy  oji  the  bleak  hills  of  Spain,  In  truth,  the 
more  he  gained  from  the  world's  recognition,  the  more  his 
gratitude  found  to  owe. 


CHANDOS.  401 

"You  served  so  many!  yes/^  he  said,  with  a  vibration  ol 
guch  passion  as  had  used  to  move  him  with  a  sudden  vehemence 
when  he  thought  of  his  lost  Valeria.  "  And  they  were  curs 
who  tore  down  one  by  whom  they  had  been  fed — one  whom 
they  had  fawned  on  for  a  word  of  notice!  The  vilest  of  them 
all,  what  is  he  now?     High  in  honor  among  men." 

A  darkness  passed  over  his  listener's  face,  a  gloom  like 
night,  yet  a  disdain  as  strong  as  it  was  silent — such  a  look  as 
might  come  upon  the  face  of  a  man  who  saw  one  whom  he 
knew  assassin  and  traitor  courted  and  adored  by  the  peoples. 

"Ah!  give  him  your  scorn  now.  One  day  you  shall  give 
him  your  vengeance!"  cried  the  musician,  with  that  passion- 
ate desire  of  revenge  which  he  could  never,  under  any  wrongs, 
have  known  on  his  own  behalf,  but  which  he  had  felt  for 
Valeria,  and  which  he  felt  for  Chandos. 

Chandos's  head  drooped  slightly  where  he  sat,  and  into  his 
eyes  came  the  shadows  of  a  thousand  bitter  memories. 

"  Perhaps,''  he  said,  under  his  breath. 

The  evil  tempted  him;  if  ever  it  passed  into  his  hands,  its 
widest  exercise  could  be  no  more  than  justice.  In  his  dark 
hours  there  were  times  when  no  other  thing  looked  worth  the 
living  for,  or  worth  the  seeking,  except  this — vengeance  upon 
his  traitor. 

Lulli  gazed  at  him  regretfully  and  with  self-reproach;  he 
had  not  meant  to  stir  these  deep-closed  poisonous  pools  of 
deadly  recollection;  he  had  not  meant  to  recall  a  past  that 
was,  by  a  command  he  obeyed  with  the  docile  obedience  of  a 
dog,  never  named  between  them.  His  music  was,  to  the  man 
he  honored,  as  the  music  of  the  young  Israelite  was  to  the  soul 
of  the  great  stricken  king  whom  men  forsook  and  God  aban- 
doned. His  conscience  and  his  love  alike  smote  him  for  hav- 
ing jarred  on  these  forbidden  chords  and  wrought  harm  in- 
stead of  bringing  consolation. 

He  leaned  forward,  and  his  voice  was  infinitely  sweet. 

"  Forgive  me.  You  have  loved  truth  and  served  men 
through  all,  despite  all;  it  is  not  to  you  that  I  should  talk  of 
such  a  tiger's  lust  as  vengeance,  though  vengeance  i/icre  were 
righteous.  If  they  had  not  driven  you  from  your  jiaradise, 
would  you  ever  have  been  your  greatest?  If  you  had  not  been 
forced  from  your  rose-gardens  out  into  the  waste  of  the  desert, 
would  you  ever  have  known  your  strength?  Till  you  ceased 
to  enjoy,  you  were  ignorant  how  to  endure." 

The  words  were  true.  The  bread  of  bitterness  is  the  food 
on  which  men  grow  to  their  fullest  stature;  the  waters  of  bit- 


403  CHANDOS. 

terness  are  the  debatable  ford  tlirougli  wliich  they  reach  the 
shores  of  wisdom;  the  ashes  boldly  grasped  and  eaten  without 
faltering  are  the  price  that  must  be  paid  for  the  golden  fruit 
of  knowledge.  The  swimmer  can  not  tell  his  strength  till  he 
has  gone  through  the  wild  force  of  opposing  waves;  the  great 
man  can  not  tell  the  might  of  his  hand  and  the  power  of  his 
resistance  till  he  has  wrestled  with  the  angel  of  adversity  and, 
held  it  close  till  it  has  blessed  him.  i 

Still,  the  thought  will  arise.  Is  the  knowledge  worth  its  pur- 
chase? Is  it  not  better  to  lie  softly  in  the  light  of  laughing 
suns  than  to  pass  through  the  blackness  of  the  salt  sea-storm 
out  of  pity  for  men  who  will  revile  the  pursuit  of  a  phantom 
goal  that  may  be  but  a  mirage  when  all  is  over? 

This  thought  was  with  him  now. 

"  God  knows!'^  he  said.  "  Do  not  speak  against  my  golden 
days;  they  were  very  dear  to  me.  I  think  I  was  a  better  man 
in  them  than  I  have  ever  been  in  my  exile.  A  happy  life — a 
life  that  knows  and  gives  happiness  as  the  sunlight;  it  can  not 
last  on  earth,  may  be,  but  it  is  h'fe  as  no  other  is,  while  it 
does." 

LuUi  was  silent.  The  yearning  regret  that  unconsciously 
escaped  in  the  reply  pierced  him  to  the  heart,  even  though  he, 
to  whom  existence  had  been  one  long  spell  of  j^hysical  pain, 
and  to  whom  all  strength  and  joy  were  unknown,  could  but 
dimly  feel  all  that  the  man  who  spoke  to  him  looked  back  to 
with  so  passionate  a  longing. 

"  The  revelers  in  Florence,"  he  murmured,  softly,  "  had 
delight  and  gladness,  and  made  of  life  an  unbroken  festa, 
while  Dante  was  in  exile,  AVho  thinks  of  them  now? — even 
of  their  names?  But  on  his  door  is  written,  "  Qui  nacqui  11 
divino  Poeta. '  " 

Chandos  rose  with  a  smile — a  smile  in  which  there  war  l 
weariness  beyond  words. 

"  A  tardy  and  an  empty  recompense!  While  they  write  on 
his  door  to-day,  reviling  those  who  were  blind  in  his  genera- 
tion, they  repeat  in  their  own  times  the  blindness,  and  the 
persecution  to  free  thought,  by  which  the  poet  and  the  thinker 
suffered  then  and  suffer  still." 

Throughout  the  years  which  Irdd  gone  by  since  the  fall  of 
his  high  estate,  no  lamentation,  no  recrimination,  had  ever 
been  heard  to  pass  his  lips.  W  hen  the  tidings  floated  to  him 
of  success  pded  on  success  thuD  his  enemy  and  his  traitor 
achieved,  he  listened  in  silence,  too  proud  to  condemn  "A'hat 
was  beneath  envy  and  beyond  vengeance.     Men  sought  often- 


CHANDOS.  403 

times  to  make  him  speak  of  the  past  and.  speak  of  Trevenna; 
they  never  succeeded.  He  held  his  peace,  keeping  patience 
with  a  force  of  control  which  amazed  and  bewildered  those 
who  had  known  him  as  an  effeminate,  self-indulged  voluptuary, 
and  had  looked  from  him  for  a  suicide's  story,  or,  at  best,  for 
a  bitter  upbraiding  of  the  curse  of  fate.  They  never  heard  a 
word  from  him  either  of  regret  at  his  own  ruin  or  of  anger  at  his 
debtor's  success.  He  endured  in  as  absolute  a  silence  as  ever 
an  Indian  endured  when  bound  to  the  pyre.  To  two  only, 
two  who  alone  remained  to  him  out  of  the  throngs  who  had 
once  thought  no  honor  higher  than  to  claim  his  friendship, 
did  he  ever  speak  either  of  his  fate  or  of  his  foe:  and  to  them 
he  spoke  but  reluctantly.  They  were  Lulli  and  Philippe 
d'Oi-vale. 

The  luster  of  the  descending  sun  was  bright  through  all  the 
forest-glades  as  he  left  the  musician's  house  now,  and  went 
alone  through  the  great  aisles  of  oak  and.  elm,  and  under  the 
shadow  of  the  stone  bowlders  and  rugged  masses  of  naked  or 
moss-grown  granite,  with  tiie  rush  of  falling  waters  thunder- 
ing nosv  and  again  on  the  silence.  The  love  of  the  earth's 
freshness  and  fragrance  and  beauty  would  never  die  in  him; 
he  had  too  much  of  Shelley's  nature.  The  bleakness  of  pov- 
erty, the  narrow  rigidity  of  want,  the  colorlessness  of  life 
without  the  glow  of  passion,  the  warmth  of  pleasure,  the  vivid- 
ness of  sensuous  charms  and  sensuous  delights,  the  richness  of 
luxury,  and  the  power  of  possession,  all  these,  which  he  had 
known  in  their  deprivation  and  their  misery,  had  not  altered 
this  in  him;  and  the  chief  solace  of  his  life  had  been  the  con- 
solation that  he  had  been  able  by  his  temperament  to  find  in 
the  antique  tran(|uillity  of  the  cities  of  Italy,  in  the  solemn  re- 
pose of  mighty  Alps,  in  the  changeful  loveliness  of  Southern 
skies,  in  the  intense  splendor  of  Oriental  landscape.  The  art- 
ist and  the  poet  were  too  closely  blended  in  him  for  him  ever 
to  cease  to  heed  these  things;  and  yet  there  were  times  when 
there  was  in  them  for  him  an  anguish  that  seetned  to  pass  his 
strength.  He  had  once  looked  on  them  with  such  careless 
eyes  of  simlit  joy,  with  the  warmth  of  their  suns  on  women's 
cheeks,  and  the  laughter  of  idle  summer-day  love  on  their  air! 
There  are  many  natures,  steel-knit,  Puritan,  austere,  narrovf 
in  limit  and  in  sight,  which  never  know  what  it  is  to  enjoy, 
and  never  are  conscious  of  their  loss;  but  to  his,  and  to  char- 
acters like  his,  life  without  this  divine  power  of  enjoyment 
differs  in  little — differs  in  nothing  of  value — from  death. 

Now,  as  he  went  through  the  woodland  shades,  with  the 
checkered  light  across  the  moss  of  the  paths,  his  heart  went 

5— ad  half.      - 


404  CHANDOS. 

back  to  the  time  of  his  youth,  the  time  when  no  other  doubt 
had  rested  ou  him  in  such  forest-luxuriance  than  to  ask — 

"  Oh,  wliicli  were  best,  to  roam  or  rest? 
Tlie  land's  lap  or  the  water's  breast? 
To  sleep  on  yellow  millet-sheaves, 
Or  swim  in  lucid  shadows  just 
Eluding  water-lily  leaves? 
Which  life  were  best  on  summer  eves?" 

It  might  be  true,  as  the  French  cripple  had  said,  that  he 
was  greater  now  than  he  had  been  then—that  in  conflict  he 
liad  gained,  and  had  become  that  which  he  would  never  have 
done  or  been  in  the  abundance,  the  indolence,  the  shadowless 
content,  and  the  royal  dominion  of  his  epicurean  years.  But 
for  himself — in  many  moments,  at  the  least — the  vanity  in  all 
things,  in  wisdom  as  in  riches,  that  Ecclesiastes  laments,  smote 
him  hard;  and  he  would  have  given  the  fame  of  a  Plato,  of 
an  Antoninus,  of  a  Dante,  of  a  Shakespeare,  to  have  back  one 
day  of  that  glorious  and  golden  time! 

The  sun  was  well-nigh  set;  here,  in  the  darkness  of  the  oak- 
glades,  there  was  little  but  a  dusky,  ruddy  glow,  fitful  and 
flamelike.  He  passed  slowly  onward;  his  head  was  uncovered, 
for  the  air  was  sultry,  and  such  breeze  as  arose  was  welcome; 
here  and  there  a  stray  lingering  sunbeam  touched  the  fairness 
of  his  hair;  otherwise  the  depth  of  the  forest-shadow  was  on 
his  face,  that  wore  ever  now,  though  it  was  serene  in  repose 
and  its  smile  was  infinitely  sweet,  the  weariness  and  the  dignity 
of  pain  silently  borne,  which  long  ago  had  hushed  with  their 
royalty  of  resolve  and  of  suffering  the  hungry  crowd  gathered 
in  the  porphyry  chamber.  An  artist,  hidden  among  the 
thickness  of  the  leaves,  sketching  the  great  oak-trunks,  looked 
up  as  his  step  crushed  the  grasses — a  swift,  slight,  breathless 
look;  then,  as  though  he  saw  some  ghost  of  a  dead  age,  the 
painter  shivered,  and  let  fall  his  brushes,  and  cowered  down 
into  the  gloom  of  the  tall  ferns  with  the  shrinking  horror  of 
a  frightened  hare. 

'*  All,  Christ!"  he  murmured,  in  Spanish,  "  how  weary  he 
looks  of  his  exile!  and  how  king-like  in  his  dignity  still!  Misery 
has  not  embittered  him.  lie  must  have  a  rare  nature.  If  I 
had  found  strength  to  tell  him  all  that  night  in  the  street,  how 
would  it  have  been  now?  It  could  not  have  been  worse  with 
us  ;  and  it  was  an  Iscariot's  sin  only  to  know — to  share!'* 

Chandos  passed  onward,  not  seeing  him  there  beneath  the 
shelter  of  the  spreading  ferns;  his  thoughts  were  sunk  far  in 
the  past.  He  had  met  his  fate  with  a  tranquil  endurance,  with 
the  proud  and  uucomplaiuiug  temper  of  his  race,  which  had  in 


CHANDOS.  405 

all  centuries  risen  out  of  the  softness  of  voluptuo-us  indulgence 
to  encounter  misfortune  grandly;  but  not  the  less  was  life  very 
joyless  to  him,  and  tlie  bitterness  of  its  vain  toil  oftentimes 
pursued  and  mocked  him.  As  he  went,  on  the  sileuee  rang 
tlie  clear  mellow  notes  of  a  hunting-horn,  and  the  echo  of  a 
horse's  feet;  into  the  open  green  plateau  immediately  below 
the  I'ising  ground  on  which  he  was,  a  horseman  dashed  rapid- 
ly, and  reined  up,  looking  about  him — a  court  guest,  by  the 
court  hunting-dress  he  wore,  with  its  scarlet  and  green  and 
gold,  and  its  gold-handled  forest-knife. 

"  Hola!  has  the  Palace  party  passed?" 

As  he  glanced  up,  the  words  died  on  the  speaker's  lips;  for 
the  first  time  their  eyes  met  since  the  night  in  the  Rue  du 
Temple.  In  the  red,  faint,  lowering  light,  under  the  dense 
shade  of  the  oak-boughs,  with  the  twilight  of  the  autumn- 
bronzed  leaves  flung  heavily  down  between  them,  Trevenna 
saw  him  where  he  stood  on  the  slope,  with  the  black  wall  of 
foliage  behind  him,  and  a  single  faint  ray  of  the  declining  sun 
shed  full  across  his  eyes,  that  were  filhng  dark  as  night  with 
the  sudden  upleaping  of  silent  passions,  of  thronging  memories, 
of  unavenged  and  unextinguished  wrongs. 

When  they  had  last  met,  the  murderous  hand  of  his  traitor 
had  flung  him  down  on  the  blood-stained  stones  of  the  old 
monastic  court,  and  had  left  him  to  perish  as  he  might  in  the 
heart  of  the  sleeping  city,  in  the  cold  of  the  winter's  night. 
When  they  had  last  met,  John  Trevenna  had  cursed  him  where 
he  lay  senseless,  and  had  wished  his  father's  soul  could  know 
his  ruin,  aud  had  believed  no  more  that  the  life  he  had  de- 
stroyed would  ever  again  be  raised  among  living  men,  and 
gather  strength  to  vanquish  and  endure,  than  if  he  had  struck 
to  its  heart  with  a  knife  and  flung  the  corpse  out  to  the 
river. 

For  the  first  moment  there  was  no  memory  on  either  save 
that  memory,  and  Trevenna's  face  paled  and  lost  its  healthful 
glow.  He  had  known  that  his  prey  had  survived  to  bear 
calamity  and  exile  and  follow  the  guidance  of  a  pure  and  im- 
personal ambilion;  the  world  had  often  spoken  each  other's 
names  on  their  ears;  but  they  had  never  met  until  now — now 
when  the  form  of  Chandos  rose  before  him  in  the  reddened 
sullen  glow  of  the  dim  forest-aisles,  like  a  resurrection  from 
the  grave.  And,  in  the  first  moment,  all  his  intensity  of  hate 
revived  in  its  ancient  lust,  burning  in  him  none  the  less,  but 
the  more,  Ijeeause  it  had  wreaked  its  worst  to  satiety.  He 
hated  to  think  Chandos  lived;  he  hated  to  know  he  had  not 
sunk,  body  and  mind,  into  debauchery  and  insanity;  he  hated 


406  CHANDOS. 

the  very  beauty  that  he  knew  so  well  cf  old,  because  years  and 
pain  would  not  destroy  it ! 

Then  the  insolence,  the  mockery,  the  audacious  greedy  ex- 
ultation of  his  triumph  governed  him  alone;  the  pride  of  suc- 
cess and  supremacy  made  him  feel  drunk  with  the  joy  of  his 
victory.  He  bowed  to  his  saddle  with  a  contemptuous  rever- 
ence. 

"Ah,  heau  sire!  it  is  many  years  since  ^re  met.  We  said 
once  we'd  see  which  made  the  best  thing  of  life,  you,  the  vision- 
ary, or  I,  the  materiahst.  I  think  I've  won,  far  and  away, 
eh?  The  fable  says  iron  pots  and  china  pots  can't  swim  down 
the  stream  together;  your  dainty  patrician  king's-pattern 
Sevres  soon  smashed  and  swamped  among  the  bulrushes;  my 
nameless,  ugly,  battered  two-penny  tin  pipkin  got  clear  of  all 
shoals,  and  came  safe  into  port,  you  see.  I  was  your  palace 
jester  once:  what  do  you  think  of  my  success  now?" 

Chandos,  raised  above  him  by  the  rocky  slope  on  which  he 
stood,  looked  dov^n  and  gazed  at  him  full  in  the  eyes:  for  the 
instant,  Trevenna  would  have  quailed  less  if  a  dagger  had 
been  at  his  throat.  Neither  shame  nor  conscience  smote  him; 
but  for  the  instant  some  touch  of  dread,  some  throb  of  what 
was  well-)]igh  fear,  came  to  him,  as  the  voice  that  had  used  to 
be  so  famihar  on  his  ear,  and  that  had  been  unheard  through 
so  many  years  of  silence,  fell  on  his  ear  in  the  hush  of  the 
forest,  clear,  low,  cold  as  ice,  with  the  quiver  of  a  mighty 
passion  in  it. 

"  I  think  it  great  as  your  infamy,  great  as  your  treachery; 
greater  it  can  not  be." 

Trevenna  laughed:  his  savage  mirth,  his  taunting  buffoonery, 
his  unreined,  exulting  malice  of  triumph,  were  all  let  loose  by, 
the  scorn  that  cut  him  like  a  scourge,  and  which  he  hated  be- 
cause he  knew  that,  however  high  he  rose,  however  proud  his 
rank,  however  unassailable  his  station,  this  one  man  knew  all 
that  he  had  once  been,  knew  whose  hand  had  first  raised  him, 
knew  that  he  was  the  vilest  ingrate  that  ever  sold  his  friend. 

"  Whew  I"  he  cried;  "  you  are  as  haughty  as  ever.  How  do 
they  stand  that,  now  you're  only  a  heterodox  author  with  a 
dubious  reputation:  You  are  bitter  on  me:  well,  1  can  for- 
give that.  'Tisn't  pleasant,  I  dare  say,  to  have  sparkled  like 
a  firework  and  then  gone  out  into  darkness— a  failure!  But 
you'd  ten  years  of  it,  you  know;  and  it's  my  turn  now.  I'm 
a  Right  Hon.  and  a  millionaire;  I'm  a  Cabinet  minister,  and 
I'm  staying  at  court.  I  mean  to  die  in  the  Lords,  if  I  don't 
die  in  the  Lord;  and  I'm  only  waiting  for  the  '  mad  duke's  ' 
death  to  go  and  buy  Clarencieux.     When  I  retire  into  the 


CHAifDOS.  407 

Peers'  Paradise,  I'll  take  my  title  after  it— John  Trevenna, 
Baron  Clareneieux!     Won't  it  sound  well,  eh?" 

With  a  single  leap,  light,  resistless,  unerring  as  in  his  earliest, 
years,  Chandos  leaped  down  the  slope  on  which  he  stood,  his 
face  darkly  flushed,  his  lips  set  straight  and  stern  in  th(,' 
shadowy  fiery  autumn  light;  with  the  swiftness  and  force  of  a 
panther's  sj^ring  he  threw  himself  on  Trevenna,  swaying  hia* 
back  off  his  saddle  and  out  of  his  stirrups  to  the  ground,  whilu 
the  horse,  let  loose  from  the  weight  of  its  rider,  tossed  its  head 
impatient  in  the  air  and  galloped  alone  down  the  glade. 

'*  You  make  me  vile  as  yourself!  Dare  to  own  or  to  taint 
Clareneieux,  and — as  we  both  live — I  will  kill  you!" 

The  words  were  low  breathed  in  his  foe's  ear  as  he  bore  hinw 
backward,  but  the  more  deadly  in  meaning  and  in  menace  for 
that;  then  he  shook  Trevenna  from  him  and  left  him,  and 
plunged  down  into  the  dark  thick  depths  of  the  leaves.  He 
knew  if  he  stayed  to  look  on  at  his  debtor  the  mere  brute  in- 
stincts, the  sheer  Cain-like  laassions,  which  slumber  in  all  would 
conquer  him  and  force  him  on  to  some  madness  or  some 
crime.  The  voice  of  his  tempter  and  betrayer  had  come  bad 
on  him  across  the  wide  waste  of  spent  and  desert  years,  and 
had  brought  the  passions  and  the  shame  and  the  despair  of  his 
conquered  ruin  fresh  on  him,  as  though  known  but  yesterday. 

*'  Oh,  God!"  he  thought,  "  what  have  I  vanquished,  what 
have  I  learned?  This  man  makes  me  a  brute  like  himself; 
one  trial,  and  my  creeds  and  my  patience  and  my  strength 
break  like  reeds!" 

For  Trevenna  had  been  the  bane,  the  temptation,  the  tyrant, 
the  poisoner,  of  all  his  life,  and  was  so  still.  Through  his  foe 
even  the  pure  and  lofty  hopes  which  had  alone  sustained  him 
were  broken  and  polluted.  This  man  had  fame  and  success 
in  a  world  that  applauded  him!  What  was  renown  worth, 
since  it  went  to  such  as  this  mocker — a  crown  of  rotten  rushes, 
an  empty  bladder  blown  by  lying  lips,  a  meed  to  the  one  who 
dupes  a  blind  world  best,  a  prize  that  goes  to  the  stump-orator, 
to  the  S2)angled  mountebank,  to  the  blatant  charlatan,  to  the 
trained  posture-maker  of  political  and  intellecttuil  life!  What 
avail  was  it  to  labor  for  mankind  when  this  ingrate  was  their 
elected  leader,  their  accepted  representative?  What  worth  to 
toil  for  liberty  and  tolerance  when  the  one  whom  humanity 
crowned  was  the  ablest  trickster,  the  adroitest  mime,  the  cheat 
who  could  best  hide  the  false  face  in  his  sleeve  by  a  face  of 
laughing  candor  and  a  fraud  of  forged  honesty? 

Trevenna  had  robbed  hitn  of  all;  Trevenna  well-nigh  robbed 


408  CHAKDOS. 

him  now  of  the  only  solace  that  his  life  had  left.     The  success 
of  his  traitor  made  him  doubt  truth  itself. 


CHArTER  IV. 

"qui  a  offense  ke  paedonne  jamais." 

*'CTJESEhim!  There  must  have  been  something  sorely  ill 
managed  by  me  that  he  ever  lived  after  that  night.  Curse 
him!  Wiien  he  lay  in  that  garret  dying,  who  could  dream  he 
would  ever  rise  again,  unless  it  were  to  go  to  a  madhouse?" 
mused  Trevenna  before  the  fire  in  his  dressing-room  in  the 
palace.  He  had  been  slightly  bruised,  but  not  hurt;  and  he 
had  told  the  court  j^arty,  whom  he  had  found  and  rejoined  as 
soon  as  he  had  called  his  horse  to  him,  that  an  oak-bough  had 
struck  and  blinded  him,  so  that  he  had  fallen  out  of  his  sad- 
dle. As  he  sat  now,  smoking,  with  his  costly  velvets  wrapped 
around  him,  with  all  the  elegance  and  luxury  of  a  palace  in 
the  suite  of  chambers  allotted  him  as  an  English  minister  and 
a  guest  of  the  first  circle  of  autumn  visitors,  there  was  some- 
thing of  irritation  and  impatience  even  amidst  his  triumphant 
reflections.  He  could  not  resent  the  force  used  to  him,  for  he 
was  too  wise  to  let  the  world  know  of  that  forest-meeting;  and 
he  hated  to  think  that  his  intricate  nets  had  had  a  single  loose 
mesh,  by  which  his  prey  had  escaped  the  ruin  of  mind  and 
body  that  he  had  made  sure  would  accompany  the  ruin  of 
peace  and  pride  and  fair  fortune;  he  hated  to  think  that  while 
Chandos  lived  there  would  live  one  who  knew  him  as  he  was, 
knew  what  he  had  been,  knew  the  treacheries  by  which  his  rise 
had  been  consummated,  knew  the  stains  that  darkened  the 
gloss  and  the  symmetry  of  the  splendid  superstructure  of  his 
success. 

They  had  never  met  until  now;  and  he  hated  to  feel  that  the 
sting  of  his  victim's  scorn  had  power  to  jjierce  him;  he  hated 
to  feel  that  a  ruined  exile  could  quote  against  him  the  time 
when  h8 — the  millionaire,  the  minister,  the  court  guest,  the 
national  favorite — had  been  a  debtor  in  gamiug-prisons,  an  ad- 
venturer without  a  sou. 

"And  yet  I  don't  know,"  he  mused  on,  while  a  smile 
came  about  his  mouth,  and  he  gave  a  kick  to  the  ruddy  em- 
bers of  the  fire.  "  I'm  not  sorry  he  lives,  either:  if  he  were 
dead  he  wouldn't  siin'er,  and  if  he  were  dead  he  wouldn^t  see 
me  rise!  No!  I  hke  him  to  live.  He'd  have  missed  all  the 
bitterness  of  it  if  he'd  gone  in  his  grave  then.  How  I  sting 
him  with  every  step  1  get!  How  his  heart  burns  when  he  reads 


CHANDOS.  409 

my  name  in  the  Cabinet!  How  it  must  wring  and  goad  and 
taunt  and  madden  him  when  he  knows  I'm  in  his  palaces,  and 
have  got  his  prosperity,  and  have  won  my  way  to  the  proudest 
position  a  man  can  hold  in  England-  No!  I'm  glad  he  lives. 
Gad!  I'll  ask  him  to  Clarencieux,  one  day." 

And  he  plunged  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his  crimson  vel- 
vet neglige,  and  laughed  to  himself.  The  nation  would  have 
^eeu  something  amazed  if  it  had  seen  its  astute  statesman 
mockingly  exultant  over  his  triumphs  as  any  school-boy  over 
his  cricket-innings;  but  this  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  man's 
jovial,  malicious,  farcical,  racy  temper;  and  the  sweetest  morsel 
in  all  his  triumphs  was  that  each  step  and  each  crown  of  them 
was — a  revenge. 

"  Mercy!  what  a  fool  he's  been!"  he  thought.  "  Cared  for 
nothing,  while  he  had  the  power,  but  pleasure  and  revelry, 
and  making  love  to  women,  and  playing  Lorenzo  the  Mag- 
nificent, and  now  solaces  himself  in  his  poverty  with  turning 
metaphysical  questions  inside  out,  and  hrodant  sur  la  toile 
araignee,  as  they  say  here,  and  caring  for  the  future  of  the 
world,  and  working  out  the  scientific  laws  of  history!  Mercy! 
as  if  it  mattered  to  us  whether  the  world  goes  smash  when 
we've  no  more  to  do  with  it!  However,  1  don't  understand 
him;  never  did.  A  man  who  could  care  so  little  for  money 
as  he  did  never  could  be  quite  sane.  Even  now  he's  such  a 
fool;  he's  never  said  to  me  the  one  thing  he  might  say — that 
I  was  his  debtor.*' 

To  dream  that  there  might  be  a  generosity  too  proud  to 
quote  past  services  against  a  present  traitor  utterly  escaped 
Trevenna:  he  was  far  too  practical  to  have  glimpse  of  such  a 
temper;  he  only  thought  the  man  a  fool,  a  wonderful  fool, 
who  forbore  to  taunt  him,  with  the  stone  that  lay  so  ready  to 
his  hand,  in  the  reproach,  "  I  served  you." 

"  No;  I'm  glad  he  lives.  It  would  be  Hamlet  with  the  part 
of  Hamlet  left  out,  if  he  didn't  exist  to  watch  my  triumph!" 
he  mused,  clinching  the  matter  in  his  own  mind,  and  getting 
up  to  summoti  his  valet  and  dress  for  dinner.  His  momentary 
bitterness  was  all  gone.  Here  he  was,  the  guest  of  a  sove- 
reign, with  a  name  that  had  fame  in  the  Old  and  NewAVorlds, 
riches  as  much  as  he  needed  them,  a  future  brilliant  as  his 
present,  an  ambition  without  limit,  and  a  station  that  enemies 
and  friends  alike  must  envy.  He  was  content,  very  richly 
content,  as  he  sauntered  down  to  join  the  Palace  circle,  dis- 
tinguished as  the  most  eloquent,  the  most  penetrating,  the 
most  liberal,  and  tiie  most  promising  statesman  of  the  English 
Cabinet,  his  opinion  sought  bv  prmces  and  diplomatists,  hia 


410  CHAJTDOS." 

words  heard  as  words  of  gold  breatlied  from  the  lips  of  one 
,who  would  probably  govern  in  the  highest  rank  of  all  in  the 
future,  his  views  studied  with  interest,  as  those  of  the  favorite 
of  a  great  people,  even  his  mere  badinage  graciously  sougiit  by 
qrandes  dames  who  once  denied  him  cards  to  their  receptions. 
The  high  orders  detested  him  still,  it  is  true;  but  they  feared 
him,  and  they  courted  him.  They  thought  they  propitiated 
him  by  such  concessions.  Never  was  error  wider.  He  used 
them,  and — despised  them. 

"  Monsieur  Trevenna,  permit  me  congratulations  on  your 
late  maginficent  couj)  d'etat,"  smiled  the  Comtesse  de  la 
Vivarol,  who,  under  a  new  dynasty,  reigned  in  the  court,  a 
power  now,  as  she  had  earlier  been  a  beauty. 

He  bowed  his  thanks. 

"  You  do  me  much  honor,  madame.  I  trust  we  have  the 
aid  of  your  favoring  sympathiesr" 

"  Personally,  yes;  scarcely  your  party.  You  are  all  so 
decorous  and  so  dull  in  your  Parliament.  Whoever  turns  the 
handle,  the  organ  plays  the  same  tunes,"' 

"  And  you  would  like  an  infusion  of  the  ga  ira  ?  Well,  I 
should  not  object  to  it,  myself;  but  I  shouldn't  dare  to  intro- 
duce it.     I'm  very  prudent!" 

"  Indeed!     You  go  rather  far,  too,  at  Darshampton — " 

Trevenna  shook  his  head. 

"  Darshampton?  They  will  tell  you  there  that  I  am  de- 
voted to  the  civil  and  religious  institutions  of  the  nation. 
Why,  I  have  built  a  church!  It  cost  me  a  deal  in  painted  win- 
dows; but  you  don't  know  what  it  has  done  for  me  in  reputa- 
tion. It's  made  two  spiritual  lords  believe  in  me,  and  given 
me  posticlie  as  a  '  safe  man  '  in  perpetuity.  Eeally,  for  a  good 
public  effect,  I  think  nothing  is  better  than  a  church.  Men 
think  you  have  such  a  thorough  conviction  of  orthodox  truth, 
if  you  adore  the  Lord  in  stucco  and  oak-carving!" 

La  Vivarol  laughed. 

"  You  were  not  so  orthodox  once?" 

"No;  but  I  am  now.  I  go  to  church  every  Sunday — spe- 
cially when  I'm  down  at  Darshampton.  To  be  unorthodox  is 
like  walking  out  on  a  midsummer  day  in  your  shirt-sleeves. 
It's  refreshing  to  take  your  coat  off,  and  it's  very  silly  to  carry 
a  lot  of  sheep's  wool  that  you  pant  under;  but  all  the  same, 
no  man  who  cares  what  his  neighbors  say  walks  abroad  in  his 
waistcoat.  Orthodoxy  and  broad  cloth  are  fallacies  it  la  mode : 
If  you  air  yourself  in  heresy  and  a  blouse,  the  parsons  and 
tailors,  who  see  their  trades  in  danger,  will  get  a  writ  of  lunacy 
s)ut  against  you." 


CHANDOS.  411 

The  countess  looked  at  him  with  a  certain  meaning  in  her 
6riliiant  eyes. 

"  You  are  a  clever  man.  Monsieur  Trevenna!  You  know 
how  to  manage  your  world.  But  does  it  neve7'  tire  you,  that 
incessant  promenade  in  such  unimpeachable  broadcloth?" 

Trevenna  met  her  eyes  with  a  gleaming  mischief  in  his  own. 
He  attempted  no  concealment  with  her;  the  keen  wit  of  the 
aristocratic  politician  would,  he  knew,  have  pierced  it  in  an 
instant;  and  she,  who  had  once  bidden  him  apprendre  a  s' 
effacer,  alone  never  let  him  forget  that  she  had  known  him 
when  he  was  on  sufferance  and  obscure. 

"  Tire?'''  he  said  now;  "  no,  never!  Who  tires  on  the  stage, 
so  long  as  they  clap  him,  and  so  long  as  it  pays?  It  is  your 
dissatisfied,  unappreciated  men  that  may  tire  of  their  soiqje 
maigre;  nobody  tires  of  the  turtle-soup  of  success.^' 

"  Then  you  don't  believe  in  surfeits?*' 

"  Not  for  strong  digestions/* 

"  Perhaps  jow.  are  right;  and  there  is  no  absinthe  that  pro- 
duces incessant  appetite  so  well  as  intense  self-love.'* 

Trevenna  laughed  good-humoredly;  he  acknowledged  the 
implication. 

"  Ah,  mauame,  you  know  I  never  denied  that  I  was  selfish. 
Why  should  I?  If  one  don't  love  one's  self,  who  will?  And, 
I  confess,  I  like  present  success.  Immortality  is  terribly  dull 
work;  a  hideous  statue,  that  gets  black  as  soot  in  no  time; 
funeral  sermons  that  make  you  out  a  Vial  of  Revelation,  and 
discuss  the  probabilities  of  your  being  in  the  regions  of  Satan; 
a  bust  that  slants  you  off  at  the  shoulders,  trims  you  round 
with  a  stone  scallop,  and  sticks  you  up  on  a  bracket;  a  tomb- 
stone for  the  canes  of  the  curious  to  poke  at;  an  occasional 
attention  in  the  way  of  withered  immortelles  or  biographical 
Billingsgate,  and  a  partial  preservation  shared  in  common 
with  mummies,  auks'  eggs,  snakes  in  bottles,  and  deformities 
in  spirits  of  wine — that's  posthumous  fame.  I  must  say  I 
don't  see  much  fun  in  it." 

The  comtesse  smiled  a  gracious  amusement  over  her  fan. 

"  You  have  dill'erent  views  from  your  old  friend." 

"Who?  Chaudos?  Poor  fellow!  he  was  always  eccentric; 
lived  in  the  empyrean,  and  had  ideas  that  may  be  practical  in 
the  millennium,  but  certainly  won't  be  so  before.  '  Great 
wits  to  madness,'  etc.  After  having  squandered  all  tliat 
made  life  endurable,  he  consoles  himself,  I  believe,  with  the 
beliof  that  people  will  read  him  when  he's  dead.  What  a 
queer  consolation!  Stendahl  thought  the  same  thing:  who 
opens  his  books  now?" 


iia  CHANDOS. 

"  Though  you  despise  immortality,  Moosieur  Trevenna,  it 
seems  you  can  still  grudge  it,"  said  La  Yivarol,  with  that 
quick,  }3enetrative  wit  which  could  be  barbed  as  au  arrow, 

Treveuua  felt  angry  with  himself  for  having  been  trapped 
into  the  words. 

"  I  grudge  him  nothing,  madame,'^  he  laughed,  good-hn- 
moredly — "  least  of  all  a  mummy-like  embalming  by  posterity's 
bibliomaniacs.  Indeed,  now  I  am  come  in  office,  I  shall  try 
and  induce  him  to  accept  sometliing  more  substantial.  I  be- 
lieve he's  as  poor  as  Job,  though  he's  still  as  proud  as  Lucifer.  ■" 

"He  had  somewhat  of  Job's  fortune  in  his  friends,"  said 
the  conitesse,  with  a  smile,  as  she  turned  to  others,  and  let  a 
due  occupy  the  prie-3ieu  near  her,  which  Trevenna,  at  that 
sign  of  dismissal,  vacated. 

"  What  does  she  still  feel  for  him — love,  or  hate?  I  can 
understand  most  things,"  thought  Trevenna,  "but  hang  me 
if  I  can  ever  understand  love — past  or  present.  It's  a  Jack- 
in-the-box,  always  jumping  up  when  you  think  it's  screwed 
down.  It's  like  dandelion-seeds  for  lightness,  blowing  away 
with  a  breath,  and  yet  it's  like  nettles  for  obstinacy;  there's 
no  knowing  when  it's  plucked  up.  A  confounded  thing,  cer- 
tainly. " 

Like  a  wise  man,  he  had  taken  care  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  confounded  thing,  and,  in  consequence,  digested  all 
his  dinners,  and  never  muddled  any  of  his  affairs. 


CHAPTER  V. 

**NE    CHEECHEE     QU'UN"     REGARD,    Qu'UNE    PLEUR,    QU'UN 

SOLEIL. " 

In  the  deep  gloom  of  an  antique,  forsaken,  world-forgotten 
town  of  Italy,  silent,  grass-grown,  unspeakably  desolate,  with 
the  brown  shadows  of  its  ancient  houses,  and  here  and  there 
the  noiseless  gliding  form  of  monk  or  nun  flitting  across  the 
deserted  spaces,  a  head,  like  a  Guido  Aurora  in  its  youtli,  like 
a  Guido  Magdalen  in  its  sadness,  leaned  out  from  the  archway 
of  a  bridge-parapet,  with  the  fair  warmth  of  the  cheek  and 
the  chestnut  light  of  the  hair  lying  wearily  on  the  pillow  of 
tlie  rough-hewn  stone.  Fallen  so,  half  unconsciously,  to  rest, 
the  girl's  form  leaned  against  the  buttress  of  the  old  river- way 
that  spanned  tawny  shallow  waters  only  traversed  by  some 
olive-laden  canal-boat,  whose  striped  sails  flapped  lazily  in  the 
sun;  her  brow  was  sunk  on  her  hand;  her  eyes,  full  of  a  pas- 
sionate pain,  watched  the  monotonous  ebb  and  flow  of  the 


CHANDOS.  413 

stream;  her  whole  figure  expressed  an  intense  fatigue;  but  on 
her  face,  with  all  its  brooding,  tired  suffering,  there  was  a 
look  of  patient  and  unalterable  resolve. 

"  So  endless! — so  endlessi"  she  murmured  to  the  silence  of 
the  waters.     "  Surely  God  will  have  pity  soon!" 

There  was  only,  iu  answer,  the  changeless,  sullen  ripple  of 
the  river  far  below— the  silence  that  seems  so  bitter  to  those 
who  suffer  in  their  youth,  and  who  think  some  divine  voice 
will  surely  whisper  consolation — the  silence  eternal,  in  which 
later  they  find  man  must  live  and  must  die. 

A  bent,  browned,  weather-worn  fruit-seller,  with  a  burden 
of  melons  and  gourds  and  figs  fresh  from  the  tree,  traversing 
the  steep  incline  of  the  bridge,  paused  and  looked  at  her. 
She  was  very  poor,  and  she  was  old;  but  she  had  a  tender  soul 
under  a  rough  rind.  She  touched  the  girl's  fever-flushed 
cheek  with  the  cool  fragrance  of  a  bough  of  syringa,  and 
spoke  very  gently  in  her  broad,  mellow  peasant-dialect — 
*'  Poverina,  thou  art  tired.  Take  some  fruit." 
She  started,  and  looked  up;  but  there  was  almost  apathy  in 
the  smile  with  which  she  shook  her  head — it  was  so  listless  in 
its  melancholy. 

"  You  are  very  kind;  but  I  want  nothing." 
"  That  is  not  true,"  said  the  old  contadina.     "  Thou  art  in 
want  of  much;  thou  art  too  weary  for  thy  youth.     Where  are 
thy  friends?" 

"  I  have  none!"  The  answer  was  the  more  pathetic  for  the 
proud,  restrained  sadness  with  v,hich  it  was  given,  as  she  rose 
from  her  leaning  attitude,  impatient  of  pity,  though  not  un- 
grateful for  it. 

''  None?  Mother  of  God!  and  so  j^oung!  Thou  art  seeking 
some  one?" 

A  deep  flush  passed  over  her  face;  she  bent  her  head  in  as- 
sent. 

"  Ah!  thou  seekest  those  who  love  thee?" 
The  color  burned  deeper  on  her  cheek;  her  eyes  looked 
down  on  the  water  again  with  their  aching  pain. 

''Xo,"she  said,  simply.  "I  only  seek  to  find  one;  and 
when  I  have  found  him,  and  heard  his  voice  once  more — to 
die." 

She  spoke  rather  to  her  own  thoughts  than  to  the  peasant. 
The  old  woman's  deep-set  eyes  grew  very  gentle,  and  her  lips 
muttered,  in  wrath — 

"  Che — e— e!  Is  it  so  with  thee — and  so  young!  The 
Madonna's  vengeance  fall  on  him,  then,  whoever  he  be,  for 
having  caused  thee  such  shame!" 


414  CHANDOS. 

The  words  acted  like  a  spell;  she  lifted  herself  from  the 
drooping  languor  of  her  rest,  and  flashed  on  the  jjeasant  from 
the  superb  darkness  of  her  eyes  an  imperious  regal  challenge 
of  rebuke  and  amaze.  Who  the  speaker  waT  she  forgot;  she 
only  remembered  the  sense  that  had  been  spoken. 

"  Shame?  1  have  no  shame!  My  only  glory  is  to  have  seen 
and  known  the  noblest  life  on  earth.  The  only  hope  I  live  for 
is  that  1  may  be  worthy  to  hear  his  words  once  more.  Venge- 
ance on  liiin  ?     God's  love  be  v/ith  him  always!" 

She  passed  onward  with  a  sovereign's  grace,  moving  like 
one  in  a  dream;  though  tlie  passion  of  her  words  had  risen  to 
so  sudden  and  vivid  a  defense,  she  seemed  to  have  little  con- 
sciousness of  what  she  did,  whither  she  went.  Then,  as  though 
a  pang  of  self-reproach  moved  her,  she  turned  sv/iftly  and 
came  back,  and  stooped  over  the  aged  contadina,  raising  the 
fallen  fruit  with  a  self-accusative  gentleness,  beseeching  even 
while  it  still  was  so  j^roud. 

"Forgive  me!  You  meant  kindness;  and  you  did  not 
know.     I  was  ungrateful  and  ungentle;  but  I  am  very  tired!" 

Her  lashes  were  heavy  with  tears,  and  a  sigh  of  intense  ex- 
haustion escaped  her.  The  peasant,  touched  to  the  quick, 
forced  the  freshest  fruits  into  her  hands. 

"  Carissima!  1  thought  nothing  of  it.  I  only  pitied 
thee." 

At  the  word  the  haughty  rebellion  of  a  royal  nature  gleamed 
in  the  sadness  of  the  beautiful  ej-es  that  looked  down  on  her. 

"  Pity  is  for  those  who  ask  alms,  or  stoop  to  shame:  do  not 
give  it  to  me." 

"  But  art  thou  all  alone?" 

"Yes;  all  alone.'' 

"Christ!  and  with  thy  beauty!  Ah!  insult  will  come  to 
thee,  though  thou  art  like  a  princess  in  her  exile;  insult  will 
come,  if  thou  art  alone  in  the  wide  world  with  such  a  face  and 
such  a  form  as  thine." 

On  her  face  rose  a  look  of  endurance  and  of  resistance  far 
beyond  her  years. 

"  Insult  never  comes  except  to  those  who  welcome  it.  Fare- 
well! and  believe  me  from  my  heart  grateful,  if  I  have  seemed 
not  to  be  so  enough." 

i\nd  she  went  on  her  way,  with  the  mellow  light  of  a  setting 
sun  on  her  meditative  brow,  and  the  shadow  of  the  gray  para- 
pet cast  fortrard  on  her  path.  The  fruit-seller  looked  after  her 
wistfully,  perplexed  and  regretful. 

"  The  saints  keep  her!"  she  muttered  over  her  tawny  gourds 


CHANDOS.  415 

and  luscious  figs.  "  She  will  need  their  care  bad  enough  be- 
fore she  has  found  out  what  the  world  is  for  such  as  she.  Holy 
Mary!  whoever  left  her  alone  like  that  must  have  had  a  heart 
of  stone.'' 

The  girl  passed  onward  over  the  rise  and  descent  of  the  old 
pointed  bridge;  there  was  the  flush  of  fever  on  her  cheek,  the 
exhaustion  of  bodily  fatigue  in  her  step;  but  her  eyes  looked 
far  forward  with  a  brave  light,  resolute  while  it  was  so  vision- 
ary, and  her  lips  had  as  much  of  resolve  as  of  pain  on  them. 
In  one  hand  swung  a  pannier  full  of  late  summer  flowers, 
woven  with  coils  of  scarlet  creepers,  and  with  the  broad 
bronzed  leaves  of  vine,  in  such  taste  as  only  the  love  and  the 
fancy  of  an  artist-mind  could  weave  them;  in  the  other  she 
held,  closely  clasped,  the  bough  of  blossoming  syringa  and  a 
book  well  worn,  that  she  pressed  against  her  bosom  as  she 
went,  as  though  it  were  some  living  and  beloved  thing.  There 
was  an  extreme  pathos,  such  as  had  touched  the  peasant-wom- 
an, in  the  union  of  her  excessive  youth  and  her  perfect  loneli- 
ness; there  was  something  yet  higher  and  yet  more  pathetic  in 
the  blending  in  her  of  the  faith  and  ignorance  of  childhood  that 
wanders  out  into  the  width  of  the  world  as  into  some  wonder- 
land of  Faery,  and  the  unwearying,  undaunted  resolution  of  a 
pilgrim  who  goes  forth  as  the  pilgrims  of  Christendom  went 
eastward  to  look  on  their  Jerusalem  once  and  die  content. 

The  bridge  led  down  across  the  river  into  a  wide  square,  so 
still,  so  deserted,  so  mediaeval,  with  its  vast  abandoned  palaces 
and  its  marvelous  church  beauty,  with  only  some  friar's 
shadow  or  some  heavily  weighted  mule  crossing  it  in  the  light 
of  the  Italian  sunset.  In  the  low  loggia  of  one  of  tiie  palaces, 
altered  to  a  posting-house,  a  group  was  standing,  idly  looking 
at  the  grass-grown  waste,  whilst  their  horses  were  changing. 
Thoy  were  a  gay,  rich,  titled  set  of  indolent  voyagers  who  were 
traveling  to  Kome  from  Paris,  and  were  as  incongruous  with 
the  monastic  silence  and  solitude  of  the  town  that  lay  in  its 
death-trance  as  a  Watteau  painting  in  a  Gothic  hall.  They 
saw  her  as  she  came  beneath  the  balcony,  with  the  book  against 
her  bosom,  and  the  abundance  of  tlie  flowers  drooping  down- 
ward in  rings  and  wreaths  of  color  as  she  bore  them.  Mur- 
murs of  admiration  at  her  loveliness  broke  irresistibly  even 
from  the  world-sated  men  and  women  who  leaned  there,  tired 
and  impatient  of  even  a  few  minutes'  dullness. 

"  The  old  traditions  of  Italia,  the  ideal  of  Titian  himself!" 
Baid  one  of  them.  "  BaUisswur,  will  you  not  si^are  us  one  of 
your  lilies?" 

She  looked  up;  a  flush  passed  over  her  face  at  the  famiharit^ 


416  CHANDOS. 

of  the  address,  and  its  natural  pride  deepened;  she  paused, 
and  glanced  at  the  women  of  the  group, 

"  Those  ladies  can  have  them,  if  they  wish.'' 

"But  must  not  I,  my  exquisite  young  flower-priestess?'* 
laughed  her  first  questioner,, 

She  let  her  grave  luminous  eyes  dwell  calmly  on  him. 

"  No,  signore,"  she  said,  simply;  but  the  brevity  of  the 
words  rebuked  the  insolent  ease  of  his  manner  better  than  any 
lengthier  ones. 

One  of  the  women  leaned  down,  amused  at  her  companion's 
rebuff  and  mortification;  the  loggia  was  so  low  that  she  could 
touch  the  flowers,  and  she  drew  out  one  of  the  clusters  of  late 
lilies. 

"  My  fair  child,  do  you  sell  these?" 

The  color  deepened  on  her  face;  she  lifted  herself  with  a 
haughty  grace.  She  was  not  ashamed  of  having  sold  the 
flowers,  but  she  was  ready  to  resist  to  the  death  any  aggression 
that  held  her  lowered  through  that  necessity. 

"  I  have  done,  signora." 

"Then  you  will  sell  them  to  me,"  said  the  other,  as  she 
dropped  into  the  basket  a  little  gold  piece  and  took  up  the 
blossoms.  A  hand  as  soft  as  her  own  put  back  the  money  into 
her  palm. 

"  I  have  sold  them  for  what  they  are  worth — a  few  scudi;  I 
give  them  to  you  gladly,  and  I  do  not  take  alms  from  any." 

They  looked  at  her  in  wonder;  the  dignity  of  her  utterance, 
the  purity  of  her  accent,  the  royal  ease  in  her  attitude,  amazed 
them.  An  Italian  child,  selling  flowers  for  her  bread,  spoke 
with  the  decision  and  the  serenity  of  a  princess. 

"  But  you  will  let  me  offer  it  you  as  a  gift,  will  you  not?" 
asked  the  aristocrat,  with  a  smile,  in  the  languid,  careless 
amusement  of  one  who,  tired  of  her  companions  and  impatient 
of  detention,  beguiles  the  time  with  the  first  thing  that  offers. 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  Would  you  take  gold  as  a  gift  yourself,  signora?" 

The  great  lady  reddened  ever  so  slightly;  the  words  spoken 
in  all  simplicity  pricked  her.  It  was  rumored  by  her  world 
that  empires  and  governments  had  on  occasion  bought  her 
silence  or  her  alliance  by  magnificent  bribes. 

"  Pardieu,  my  loveliest  living  Titian!"  laughed  the  French 
marquis,  who  had  first  addressed  her,  "  Madame  la  Comtesse 
does  not  sell  flowers  in  the  street,  I  fancy." 

Her  eyes  swept  over  him  with  a  tranquil  meditative  disdain. 
"There  is  but  one  rule  for  honor,"  she  said,  briefly;  "and 
rank  gives  no  title  for  insolence." 


CHANDOS.  417 

"  Fairly  liit,  Villeroy!"  laughed  the  great  lady,  who  had  re> 
covered  her  momentary  irritatiou.  "  My  beautiful  child, 
will  you  tell  me  your  name,  at  the  least?'' 

"It  is  Castalia. '*  Where  she  stood  before  the  loggia,  with 
a  troubled  seriousness  in  the  gaze  of  her  brilliant  eyes  (for  the 
tone  of  the  marquis  had  roused  more  anger  than  his  mere 
words),  her  hand  moved  the  book  against  her  heart.  "  If  I 
were  to  ask  these?''  she  mused.  "  It  is  only  the  nobles  who 
will  ever  tell  me;  it  is  only  they  who  can  be  his  friends.  I 
have  never  found  courage  to  speak  of  him  yet;  but,  until  I 
do,  I  can  not  know.*' 

"  Castalia!"  echoed  the  aristocrat.  "  A  fair  name,  indeed 
— as  fair  as  you  and  your  flowers.  You  will  not  let  me  repay 
you  for  your  lilies;  is  there  nothing  you  can  let  me  do  for 
you?" 

Castalia  looked  at  her  musingly;  the  words  were  gentle,  but 
there  was  something  that  failed  to  reassure  her.  She  stood 
before  the  half-insolent  admiration  of  the  men,  the  supercilious 
admiration  of  the  women,  of  this  titled  and  aristocratic  group, 
with  as  complete  a  dignity  and  indifference  as  though  she 
were  a  young  patrician  who  received  them;  but  she  felt  no  in- 
stinct of  regard  or  of  trust  to  any  one  of  them.  Still  she  drew 
nearer  the  loggia,  and  held  out  the  book  reluctantly  to  her 
questioner;  her  eyes  filled  with  an  earnest,  terrible,  longing 
wistfulness;  the  words  were  only  wrenched  out  with  a  great 
pang. 

"  Signora,  yes;  can  you  tell  me  where  lie  is?" 

Her  hand  pointed  to  the  name  on  the  title-page,  and  her 
voice  shook  with  the  intensity  of  anxious  entreaty  over  the  last 
two  words. 

The  countess  glanced  at  the  volume,  then  let  it  fall  with 
amaze,  as  she  gazed  at  the  pleading,  aching  eyes  that  looked 
up  to  hers. 

"  Chandos!    Mon  I)ieu!  what  is  it  to  you?" 

"You  know  him?"  There  was  the  tremulous  thirstiness 
of  long-deferred,  long-despairing  hope  in  the  question,  but 
there  was  also  something  of  the  2)assionate  jealousy  of 
Southern  love. 

The  aristocrat  looked  at  her  with  searching,  surprised,  in- 
solent eyes,  in  which  some  anger  and  more  irony  glittered, 
while  she  turned  over  the  leaves  of  the  book. 

"It  is  '  Lucrece!' "  she  murmured — "  '  Lucrece!' "  In 
the  moment  her  thoughts  went  backward  over  so  many  years 
to  so  many  buried  hours,  to  so  many  forgotten  things,  to  so 


418  CHAKDOS. 

mauy  bygone  scenes.  The  book  came  to  her  like  a  voice  o{ 
the  past. 

'*  You  kuow^  him!"  A  quivering  emotion  rang  in  the  voice. 
*'  What  interest  has  he  for  you?" 

The  lady  had  recovered  her  momentary  amazement,  and  the 
smile  with  which  she  spoke  thrilled  with  fire  and  struck  like 
ice  the  heart  of  Castalia,  though  that  heart  was  too  guileless 
to  know  all  the  smile  meant.  But  the  anguish  of  a  hopeless 
and  endless  search  was  stronger  on  her  than  the  sense  of  insult; 
her  eyes  filled  with  a  beseeching  misery,  like  a  wounded  ani- 
mal's, and  her  hands,  as  she  drew  back  the  volume,  were 
crushed  on  it  in  a  gesture  of  agonized  supj^lication. 

"  You  know  his  name,  at  least?  Ah!  tell  me,  for  the  love 
of  pity,  where  he  is  gone!'' 

The  aristocrat  turned  away  with  a  negligent  cold  contempt. 

*'  Your  friend  wanders  all  over  the  world;  if  you  want  to 
discover  him,  you  have  a  very  poor  chance,  and  one  I  am 
scarcely  disposed  to  aid, " 

*'  Chandos,  now  he  has  turned  philosopher,  retains  pretty 
much  the  same  tastes  he  had  as  a  poet,  I  suppose?"  she  mur- 
mured, with  a  smile,  to  one  of  her  female  friends.  "  The  girl 
is  very  beautiful,  certainly;  but  how  shameless  to  ask  its  /  It 
is  scarcely  creditable  to  an  author  who  writes  such  eloquent 
periods  on  Humanity  to  leave  her  to  starve  by  selling  lilies!" 

The  slight,  scornful  laugh  caught  Castalia's  ear,  as  the  col(I 
words  of  the  first  phrases  had  stung  all  her  pride  and  killed 
all  hope  within  her;  a  great  darkness  had  come  over  her  face, 
the  force  of  Italian  passion  gleamed  in  her  eyes,  but  her  face 
was  white  and  set,  and  her  lips  were  j)ressed  together  to  hold 
in  the  words  that  rose  to  them.  She  turned  away  without 
another  entreaty;  not  even  to  learn  of  him  would  she  suppli- 
cate there.  The  marquis,  with  a  light  leaj?,  cleared  the  loggia 
and  gained  her  side.  He  was  young,  handsome,  and  his  voice, 
when  he  would,  was  sweet  as  music. 

"  You  seek  the  writer  of  that  book?"  he  said,  gently  touch« 
ing  the  volume. 

The  look  she  turned  on  him  might  have  touched  the  stern- 
est to  pity. 

"  Ah,  signore — yes!" 

The  answer  broke  from  her  with  a  sigh  that  was  beyond  re- 
pression. Her  eyes  grew  dim  with  tears.  The  world  held  but 
one  idea,  one  thought,  one  existence,  for  her,  and  her  love  was 
at  once  too  utter  an  absorption  and  too  absolute  an  adoration 
to  be  conscious  of  anything  except  its  one  search. 

*'  Come  with  me,  then,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  you  wish." 


CHANDOS.  ~  419 

A  radiance  of  joy  and  hope  flashed  over  the  sadness  of  her 
face.  She  did  not  Isnow  how  dangerous  an  intensity  that  sud- 
den light  of  rapture  lent  her  beauty;  she  only  thought  that 
she  should  hear  of  him. 

"  I  will  come,"  she  said,  softly,  while  her  hand  still  helcl 
the  book  to  her  bosom;  and  she  went,  unresisting,  beside  him 
to  the  place  to  which  he  turned — a  solitary,  darkened  terrace, 
heavily  overhung  by  the  stones  of  an  unused  palazzo,  with  the 
river  flowing  sluggishly  below. 

"  Why  do  you  want  to  seek  him?'^  her  companion  asked. 

In  his  heart  he  thought  he  knew  well  enough.  Her  lover 
had  abandoned  her,  and  she  was  following  him  to  obtain  re- 
dress or  maintenance. 

Her  eyes  dwelt  on  the  water  with  the  earnest,  lustrous, 
dreamy  gaze  that  had  used  to  recall  so  vague  a  memory  to 
Chandos. 

"  Signore,  only  to  see  him  once  more. " 

*'  To  see  him!  To  stir  him  to  pity,  1  suppose — to  make 
some  claim  on  himr" 

She  did  not  comprehend  his  meaning;  but  she  lifted  her 
head  quickly  with  the  imperial  pride  that  mingled  in  so  witch- 
ing a  contrast  with  her  guileless  and  child-like  simplicity. 

"  Signore,  I  would  die  sooner  than  ask  his  pity;  it  would  be 
to  ask  and  to  merit  his  scorn.  Claim,  too!  What  claim? 
Have  subjects  a  claim  on  their  king,  because  he  has  once  been 
gentle  enough  to  smile  on  them?  When  I  find  him,  I  will 
not  weary  him;  I  will  not  let  him  even  know  that  I  am  near; 
but  I  will  search  the  world  through  till  I  look  on  his  face  once 
more,  and  then — the  joy  of  it  will  kill  me,  and  I  shall  be  at 
rest  with  my  mother  forever. " 

He  looked  at  her,  mute  with  surprise.  If  she  had  been  at- 
tractive in  his  sight  before,  she  was  tenfold  more  so  now,  as 
she  spoke  with  the  exaltation  of  a  love  that  absorbed  her  whole 
life,  making  her  unconscious  of  all  save  itself,  and  the  mourn- 
ful simplicity  of  the  last  words  uttered  with  a  resignation  that 
was  content,  in  the  dawn  of  her  youth,  to  receive  no  other 
mercy  than  death.  He  was  amazed,  he  was  bewildered,  he 
was  entranced;  he  felt  an  envious  passion  in  an  instant  against 
the  one  for  whom  she  could  speak  thus;  but  comprehend  her 
he  could  not.  He  was  shallow,  selfish,  a  cold  libertine,  and 
at  once  too  young  and  too  worldly  to  even  faintly  understand 
the  mingling  in  her  nature  of  transparency  and  depth,  of 
tropical  fervor  and  of  utter  innocence,  of  fearless  pride  against 
all  insult  and  of  absolute  abandonment  to  one  idolatry.  He 
spoke  in  the  irritation  of  wonder  and  annoyance. 


420  CHANDOS. 

*'  The  author  of  '  Lucrece '  is  much  flattered  to  be  the  In- 
spirer  of  so  tender  a  love!  I  am  afraid  he  has  been  but  negli- 
gent of  the  gift/' 

The  words  were  coarser  than  he  would  have  used  save  on  the 
spur  of  such  irritation;  their  effect  was  like  a  spell.  The  flush 
that  was  like  the  scarlet  depth  of  a  crimson  camellia  covered 
her  face  in  an  instant,  her  eyes  darkened  with  a  tremulous 
emotion  that  swiftly  altered  to''the  blaze  of  Tuscan  wrath,  her 
lips  trembled,  her  whole  form  changed  under  the  sudden 
change  of  thought;  the  shame  of  love  came  to  her  for  the  first 
moment,  as  the  lips  of  another  man  spoke  it;  she  had  been 
wholly  unconscious  of  it  before.  She  was  seeking  him  as  de- 
votees sought  the  Holy  Grail,  as  a  stray  bird  seeks  the  only 
hand  that  has  ever  caressed  and  sheltered  it.  The  word  or 
the  meaning  of  passion  had  never  been  uttered  to  her  till  now. 
An  intense  horror  consumed  her — horror  of  herself,  horror  oi 
her  companion;  she  shuddered  where  she  stood  in  the  hot  air, 
but  the  proud  instinct  of  her  nature  rose  to  sustain  herself,  to 
defend  Chandos. 

"  You  mistake,  signore,"  she  said,  with  a  calm  that  for  the 
moment  awed  him.  "He  whom  I  seek,  I  seek  because  he  is 
my  only  friend-my  only  sovereign  lord;  because  my  debt  to 
him  is  a  debt  so  vast,  a  debt  of  life  itself  that  life  can  never 
pay.  He  was  never  negligent  of  me— never;  he  was  but  too 
good,  too  generous,  too  gentle." 

He  looked  at  her,  perplexed  and  incensed.  He  vaguely  felt 
that  he  was  in  error;  but  he  was  distant  as  ever  from  the 
truth.  All  he  knew  was  that  he  had  never,  in  the  whole 
range  of  courts,  seen  loveliness  that  could  compete  with  the 
face  and  form  of  this  young  seller  of  the  Tuscan  lilies. 

"Forgive  me,'*  he  murmured,  eagerly;  "I  meant  no 
offense.     Only  to  look  on  you  is  sufficient  to — " 

"You  said  you  would  tell  me  where  he  is.''  She  spoke 
very  low,  but  her  lips  were  set.     She  began  to  mistrust  him. 

"  I  will;  but  hear  me  first.  He  whom  you  talk  of  is  very 
poor;  he  is  no  longer  young;  he  is  a  madman  who  spent  all 
his  millions  in  a  day,  and  who  always  played  at  his  fancy  with 
women,  and  left  them.    He  is  not  worthy  a  thought  of  yours." 

The  glorious  darkness  of  her  eyes  grew  hke  fire;  but  she 
held  her  passion  in  rein. 

*'  Keep  the  promise  you  made  me,"  she  said,  in  her  teeth. 
"Tell  me  of  him." 

"  I  will.  One  moment  more.  He  can  not  care  whether 
you  live  or  die,  or  would  ne  have  left  you  thus?" 

It  was  a  random   blow,  essayed  at  hazard,  but  it  struck 


CHANDOS.  421 

home.     !She  grew  very  pale,  and  her  lips  shook;  yet  she  was 
resolute — resolute  in  her  proud  defense  and  self-restraint. 

"  Signore,  there  was  no  cause  why  he  should  care.  I  was 
but  as  a  broken  bird  that  he  was  gentle  to;  he  had  a  right  to 
leave  me — no  right  to  think  of  me  one  hour. " 

He  repressed  an  impatient  oath.  He  could  not  understand 
her,  yet  he  felt  he  made  no  head  against  this  resignation  of 
herself  to  neglect  and  to  oblivion;  and  the  splendor  of  her 
face  seemed  a  hundred  times  greater  because  of  this  impotence 
to  make  any  impress  on  her  thoughts. 

*'  At  least,  if  he  had  had  the  heart  of  a  man,  he  could  never 
have  forsaken  or  forgotten  you,'' he  urged,  tenderly.  "  Listen. 
I,  who  have  seen  you  but  a  moment  ago,  give  you  too  true  a 
homage  to  be  able  to  quit  your  side  until  you  deal  me  my  fiat 
of  exile.  In  the  world  there— the  world  of  which  perhaps 
you  know  nothing — I  have  riches  and  honors  and  pleasures 
and  palaces  that  shall  all  be  yours  if  you  will  have  them. 
Come  with  me,  and  no  queen  shall  equal  your  sway. 
Come  with  me,  and  for  all  those  lilies  I  will  give  you  as  many 
pearls.  Come  with  me;  you  shall  have  diamonds  in  your  hair, 
and  slaves  for  your  every  wish,  and  I  the  chiefest  yet  the 
humblest  of  them  all;  you  shall  have  kings  at  your  feet,  and 
make  the  whole  world  mad  with  one  glance  of  those  divine 
eyes.  Come  with  me.  He  never  otlered  you  what  I  offer  you 
now,  if  you  will  only  trust  to  my  truth  and  my  love." 

He  spoke  with  all  the  hyperbole  that  he  thought  would  best 
dazzle  and  entrance  one  to  whom  the  beauties  and  the  wealth 
of  the  world  alike  were  unknown — one  in  wdiom  he  saw  blend- 
ed the  pride  of  patricians  with  the  poverty  of  jieasants — spoke 
with  his  eyes  looking  eloquent  tenderness,  with  the  sun  on  his 
handsome  head,  with  the  mellow,  beguiling  music  in  his  voice. 
For  all  answer  where  she  stood,  her  eyes  dilated  with  abhor- 
rent scorn  and  slumbering  fire;  she  shuddered  from  him  as 
from  some  asp.  She  did  not  comprehend  all  to  which  he 
wooed  her,  all  that  he  meant  to  convey;  but  she  comprehend- ' 
ed  enough  to  know  that  he  sought  to  bribe  her  with  costly 
promises,  and  outraged  her  with  a  familiarity  offensive  beyond 
endurance. 

"  No!"  she  said,  passionately,  while  tlie  liquid  melody  of 
her  voice  rang  clear  and  imperious — "  no!  he  never  oli'ered  me 
what  you  offer  me — insult.  Keither  was  he  ever  what  you  are 
— a  traitor  to  his  word!" 

She  turned  from  him  with  that  single  answer,  the  blood  hot 
as  flame  in  her  cheek,  her  head  borne  with  careless  haughty 
dignity.     She  would  not  show  him  all  she  felt;  she  would  not 


423  CHANDOS. 

show  him  that  her  heart  seemed  breaking — ^breaking  with  the 
bitterness  of  disappointment,  with  the  sadden  vivid  sense  of 
ineradicable  shame,  with  the  absolute  desolation  that  came  on 
her  with  the  first  faint  sickening  perception  of  the  meaning 
and  the  tempting  of  evil. 

Mortified,  irritated,  incensed  at  defeat  where  he  had  looked 
for  easy  victory  and  grateful  welcome,  the  young  noble  caught 
her  as  she  turned,  flung  his  arms  about  her  ere  she  could  stir, 
and  stooped  his  lips  to  hers. 

"  Bellissinia  !  do  you  think  I  shall  lose  you  like  that?'' 
Before  his  kiss  could  touch  her,  she  had  wrenched  herself 
free,  flung  him  off,  and  struck  him  across  the  mouth  with  the 
bough  of  syringa.  The  blow  of  the  fragrant  white  blossoms 
stamped  him  coward  more  utterly  than  a  weightier  stigma 
could  have  stamped  it. 

Then  she  broke  the  branch  in  two,  threw  it  at  his  feet  as  a 
young  empress  might  break  the  sword  of  a  traitor,  and,  leav- 
ing all  her  lilies  and  wealth  of  leafage  scattered  there,  she 
quitted  him  without  a  word. 

Bold  though  he  was,  her  pursuer  dared  not  follow  her.  She 
looked  down  at  the  water,  as  she  went  along  its  sullen  course, 
with  a  smile,  and  leaned  her  lips  on  the  book's  worn  page. 

"He  touched  them  once,"  she  thought;  "no  other  ever 
should  while  that  river  could  give  me  death!" 

A  deadly  horror,  a  tumult  of  dread  and  of  loathing,  were  on 
her.  She  never  rested,  all  tired  though  she  was,  till  she  was 
far  out  of  the  town,  and  amidst  the  vine-fields,  whose  leaves 
were  bronzed,  and  whose  purple  and  amber  clusters  were 
swelling  with  their  richest  bloom,  near  the  vintage.  The 
shadows,  and  the  stone  wilderness,  and  the  contracted  air  and 
space  of  cities,  were  terrible  to  her;  mountain-winds  and  for- 
est-fragrance and  the  free  stretch  of  limitless  vision  had_  been 
as  the  very  breath  of  life  to  her  from  her  infancy;  caged  in  the 
darkness  and  the  heat  of  cities,  she  would  have  died  as  surely 
as  a  caged  mocking-bird  dies  of  longing  for  the  South.  She 
dropped  to  rest,  still  by  the  side  of  tlie  water  under  the  shade 
of  the  vines,  while  the  buildings  and  bridges  of  the  town  sunk 
down  behind  a  cypress-crowned  crest  of  hills,  gray  with  olives, 
or  bare  where  the  maize  had  been  reaped.  The  browned  leaves 
and  the  reddened  fruit  hung  over  her;  the  water-flags  and  the 
purling  stream,  narrowed  and  shallow  here,  were  at  her  feet; 
alone,  tiie  great  tears  rushed  into  her  eyes,  and  her  scarce- 
flown  childhood  conquered. 

"  Oh,  God!  the  width  of  the  world!"  she  murmured,  while 
Qne  sob  rose  in  her  throat — it  seemed  so  vast,  so  endless,  so 


CHAKDOS.  423 

naked,  and  so  pathless  a  desert.  This  was  the  world  to  which 
she  had  used  to  look  as  the  redresser  of  her  wrongs,  the  bat- 
tle-field of  her  victories,  the  fairy-realm  of  every  beauty,  the 
giver  of  such  golden  crowns,  such  hours  of  paradise! — this 
world  that  seemed  so  full  of  lives  rushing  to  their  tombs, 
wherein  no  man  cared,  for  his  brother — where  all  was  hard, 
and  heated,  and  choked,  and  pitiless,  and  none  paused  to  think 
of  God!— this  world  in  which  there  was  but  one  life  for  her, 
and  that  one  lost — perhaps  lost  forever. 

This  boundless  width  of  the  world! — to  wander  through  it, 
ever  seeking,  never  finding,  wearing  the  years  away  in  fruitless 
search,  pursuing  what,  like  the  mountain-heights,  receded  fur- 
ther with  every  nearer  step,  looking  in  all  the  multitudes  of 
earth  for  one  face,  one  regard,  one  smile!  The  burden  lay 
heavy  on  her  young  heart,  and  the  heart-sickness  of  toil  with- 
out end  was  on  her  to  despair.  But  the  nature  in  her  was 
brave  unto  death,  and  the  veneration  she  bore  her  one  idol 
enchained  and  possessed  her  whole  existence.  She  had  a 
child's  faith,  a  woman's  passion,  a  martyr's  heroism. 

She  looked  up  at  the  sunlight  through  the  mist  of  her  tears; 
and  trust  was  strong  in  her,  strong  as  the  anguish  that  made 
her  fair  lips  white  and  hot  in  its  pain  and  her  brief  life  seem 
near  its  ending. 

**  He  is  poor — he  has  suffered,"  she  mused,  recalling  the 
words  that  had  been  spoken  against  him.  "  He  is  so  great; 
but  he  has  lost  his  kingdom.  VVhen  I  find  him,  then,  there 
may  be  some  way  I  may  serve  him — some  way  as  slaves 
serve." 

To  hear  that  he  had  want  and  sorrow  had  seemed  to  bring 
him  nearer  to  her,  had  bound  her  heart  closer  yet  to  one  who 
was  not  less  a  sovereign  to  her  because  a  sovereign  discrowned. 
She  marveled  what  his  history  could  be.  All  of  glory,  of  dig- 
nity, of  sacrifice,  of  desolation,  that  wronged  greatness  bears, 
thronged  to  her  thoughts  as  the  story  of  his  life.  She  knew 
him  now  as  the  unknown  man  of  whom  she  had  said,  on  the 
faith  of  his  written  words,  that  he  would  have  gathei^ed 
strength  from  any  fall;  and  she  knew  no  more  than  this.  It 
was  enough;  it  sjioke  more  to  her  than  if  she  had  been  told  of 
empires  that  he  owned.  She  knew  the  kingdom  of  his 
thoughts,  the  treasuries  of  his  mind;  through  his  words  he 
had  spoken  to  her  long  ere  her  eyes  had  rested  on  him,  and 
she  had  revered  him  as  her  miister  ere  ever  she  had  heard  his 
voice,  as  Heloise  had  revered  the  genius  which  roused  the 
nations  and  shook  the  churches  ere  ever  Abelard.  had  stood 
before  her. 


424  CHANDOS, 

lb  bound  her  to  him  iu  a  submission  absolute  and  proud  ia 
its  own  bondage  us  was  ever  that  of  Heloifse. 

It  mattered  nothing  to  her  what  his  hfe  had  been — a  reign 
or  a  martyrdom,  a  victory  or  a  travail;  what  lie  was  was  known 
to  her,  and  she  asked  uo  more.  Yet,  where  she  leaned  alone, 
the  color  glowed  into  her  face;  she  shrunk  and  trembled  in 
the  solitude  as  though  a  thousand  eyes  were  on  her;  for  the 
first  time  the  sense  of  shame  had  touched  her,  for  the  first 
time  the  vileness  of  evil  had  approachud  her,  and  both  left  her 
afraid  and  startled. 

"  They  spoke  as  though  it  wert  sin  to  seek  him,''  she 
thought.  "  Will  he  be  angered  if  I  ever  find  him?  I  will 
never  go  near  him,  never  ask  his  pity,  never  let  him  know 
that  I  am  by;  I  will  only  look  on  him  from  some  distance,  only 
stay  where  I  can  hear  his  voice  afar  off— if  I  live.  But  when- 
ever I  see  him  the  joy  will  kill  me;  and  better  so— better  far 
than  to  risk  one  cold  word  from  him,  one  look  of  scorn.  He 
said  the  worlxl  would  crush  me,  and  stone  me  like  Hypatia. 
The  world  shall  not;  but  one  glance  of  his  would,  if  it  ever 
rebuked  me!" 

A  shiver  ran  through  her  as  she  mu^ed. 

She  had  cast  herself  on  the  desert  of  the  world  in  darkness, 
as  the  lamps  of  sacrifice  are  cast  on  the  stream  by  Indian 
women  at  night.  All  was  strange  to  her,  all  cold,  all  arid, 
all  without  track  or  knowledge  or  light.  The  beauty  of  her 
voice  in  choral  service  and  the  flowers  that  she  gathered  from 
forest  or  river  were  ail  her  riches,  and  hand  to  guide  her  she 
had  none._  But  all  fear  for  herself,  all  thought  for  herself 
were  banished  in  the  domination  of  one  supreme  grief,  one 
supreme  hope.  The  world  was  so  wide!  When  would  she 
find  him? 

Her  tears  fell  heavy  and  fast,  down  into  the  white  cups  of 
the  faded  lilies  at  her  feet.  The  world  was  so  wide,  and  she 
was  so  lonely— she  whose  heart  ached  for  love,  whose  eyes 
ached  for  beauty,  whose  youth  longed  for  happiness,  as  the 
hart  for  the  water-springs. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"nihil  HUMANI   a   me   ALIElSrUM   PUTO." 

"If  you  would  but  come  back  to  us!"  Philippe  d'Orvale 
spoke  softly,  as  a  svoman  speaks  in  tenderness.  He  stood  on 
the  hearth  of  his  great  banqueting- room,  all  rich  and  dark  in 
its  burnished  luster  of  gold  and  scarlet,  like  an  old  palace- 
chamber  of  Venice;    his  hair,  that  silky  lion's  mane,  was 


CHANDOS.  425 

'♦»hite,  but  under  it  the  brown  Southern  eyes  flashed,  full  of 
untamed  fire,  and  from  the  depths  of  the  luxuriant  snowy 
beard  laughter  fit  for  Olympus  would  still  shake  the  silence 
with  the  ruiging,  riotous  mirth  of  yore.  Now  those  eyes  were 
grave  with  a  wistful  shadow,  and  the  voice  of  the  reckless 
prince  Bohemian  had  a  silver  gentleness.  "  If  you  would  but 
come  back  to  us!"  he  suid,  again,  as  he  had  said  it  many 
times  through  the  length  of  weary  years.  "  The  people  hun- 
ger for  you.  They  bear  patiently  with  me,  but  it  is  in  bitter- 
ness; they  have  never  been  reconciled  to  my  rule,  though  its 
yoke  is  light.  Come  back!  It  is  unchanged;  it  will  be  as 
your  own:  it  sliould  be  your  own  at  one  word  if  you  would  but 
let  me!'' 

Where  Chandos  stood,  in  the  shadow  of  the  jutting  angle  of 
the  alabaster  sculpture  above  the  hearth,  a  shiver  shook  him 
that  he  could  not  restrain,  like  that  which  strong  limbs  give 
irrepressibly  when  a  bared  nerve  is  cut  and  wrung.  His  own 
voice  was  very  low,  as  he  answered — 

"  To  thank  you  were  impossible;  I  have  found  no  words 
for  it  through  seventeen  years.  Your  friendship  may  well 
avail  to  outweigh  a  whole  world's  faithlessness.  But  to  accept 
were  to  sink  myself  lower  in  my  own  sight  than  my  woi'st  ruin 
ever  sunk  me.  Were  1  to  go  back  on  another's  bounty,  I  would 
give  the  men  who  still  remember  me  leave  to  stone  me  as  I 
went,  and  curse  me  in  my  father's  name." 

Philippe  d'Orvale's  superb  head  drooped  in  silence:  the 
proud  noble  knew  the  temper  that  denied  him,  and  honored  it, 
and  could  not  dare  to  press  it  to  surrender — knew  that  denial 
to  him  was  right  and  just,  even  whilst  his  heart  longed  most 
to  wring  assent.  That  denial  had  been  given  him  steadily 
through  the  long  course  of  seventeen  years — given  by  one  who 
had  once  never  known  what  it  was  to  forbid  a  desire  or  control 
a  wish — by  one  to  whom  exile  was  the  ceaseless  and  deadly  bit- 
terness that  it  was  to  Dante — by  one  who  longed  for  the  mere 
sight  of  the  forest-lands,  the  mere  breath  of  the  forest-winds, 
of  the  birthright  ho  had  lost,  as  the  weary  eyes  of  the  Syrian 
Chief  longed  for  a  sight  of  the  Promised  Land,  that  he  had  to 
lie  down  and  die  without  entering,  banned  out  to  the  last  hour. 

Chandos  saw  the  pain  on  him,  and  stretched  out  his  hand. 

"  My  best  friend,  if  I  could  take  such  charity  from  any,  it 
should  be  from  you.  But  you  must  feel  with  me  that  to  give 
consent  to  what  you  wish  were  to  lose  the  one  relic  of  my  race 
I  have  striven  to  keep — its  barren  honor." 

Due  Philippe's  mighty  grasp  closed,  warm  and  firm  on  hiB, 
though  his  head  was  still  sunk. 


436  CHANDOS. 

"I  know!  I  know!  Yet  all  I  ask  is  leave  to  give  a  sov- 
ereign back  his  throne.  No  more  than  my  house  did  to  my 
cousin  of  Bourbon. " 

A  bitterness  and  weariness  exceeding  j^assed  over  Chandos's 
face. 

"  And  the  sovereign  who  bartered  his  kingdom  for  ten  years' 
mad  delight  had  but  justice  done  him  when  it  was  swept  away 
forever.  But  speak  no  more  of  it,  for  God's  sake!  I  am  weak 
as  water,  here !" 

"  Weak!  and  yet  you  refuse?" 

"I  refuse,  because  to  accept  were  disgrace;  but  there  are 
times  when  i  could  wish  still  that — bearing  me  the  love  you 
did— you  had  shot  me  like  a  dog,  while  I  could  have  died  in 
my  youth!" 

The  words  were  hushed  to  a  scarce-heard  whisper,  as  they 
escaped  through  his  set  teeth;  they  were  a  truth  rarely  wrung 
from  him — the  truth  that  through  the  patience  and  the  peace 
and  the  strength  he  had  forced  from  calamity,  through  the 
silence  in  which  he  had  borne  his  doom  and  the  high  ambition 
•which  guided  and  sustained  him,  the  old  passionate  agony,  the 
old  loathing  of  life  that  was  pain,  would  break  with  a  resistless 
force,  and  make  him  long  to  have  died  in  that  golden  and 
cloudless  light  of  his  lost  years — died  ere  its  suns  had  set  for- 
ever. 

"  Weak!  That  is  rather  strength,  since,  wishing  this  thus, 
you  still  have  borne  against  it,  and  lived  on,  and  conquered!" 

Chandos's  face  was  in  the  darkness  of  the  shadow  where  he 
leaned;  and,  as  the  flame  of  the  hearth  shed  its  flickering  glow 
on  it,  there  was  a  heart-sickness  in  his  smile. 

"  1  have  no  strength!  A  foe's  taunt  can  make  a  brute  of 
me,  a  friend's  tenderness  unnerve  me  like  a  woman.  Some- 
times I  think  I  have  learned  nothing;  sometimes  I  think  that 
no  reed  was  ever  frailer  than  I.  Awhile  ago  a  young  girl 
showed  me  '  Lucrece:'  I  knew,  as  I  saw  the  book,  what  Swift 
felt  when  he  shed  those  passionate  tears  for  the  genius  he  had 
in  his  youth!" 

"  Yours  is  greater  than  in  your  youth." 

"  Ah!  I  doubt  it.  Youth  is  genius;  it  makes  every  dawn  a 
new  world,  every  woman's  beauty  a  love-ode,  every  breath  a 
delight.  We  weave  philosopiu'es  as  life  slips  from  us;  but 
when  we  were  young  our  mere  life  was  a  poem." 

Dark  hours  came  on  him  oftentimes;  the  Hellenic  nature  in 
him,  that  loved  beauty  and  harmony  and  the  soft  lulling  of 
the  senses,  could  not  jjerish,  and,  imprisoned  in  the  loneliness 
and  colorless  asceticism  of  need  and  of  exile,  ached  in  him 


CHANDOS.  427 

and  beat  the  bars  of  its  prison-house  in  many  a  moment.  He 
had  subdued  his  neck  to  the  yoke,  and  he  had  found  his  re- 
demption in  subhmer  things  and  loftier  freedoms,  as  Boethius 
under  the  chains  of  the  Goth  found  his  in  tiie  golden  pages  of 
the  "  Consolations;"  but  there  were  times  when  the  Greek- 
like temper  in  him  still  turned  from  life  without  enjoyment 
as  from  life  without  value. 

The  heart  of  Philippe  d'Orvale  went  with  him.  The  care- 
less, royal,  headlong  levity  of  the  princely  Bohemian  had  made 
of  life  one  long  unthinking  revel.  Dynasties  and  creeds  and 
nations  and  thrones  miglit  rock  and  fall,  might  rise  and  totter, 
round  him;  he  heeded  them  never,  but  drank  the  purple  wine 
of  his  life  brimming  and  rose-crowned,  and  learned  his  science 
from  women's  eyes,  and  sung  a  Bourbon  chant  while  others 
grew  gay  in  the  gall  of  st;ite  harness,  and  shook  the  grand, 
mellow,  rolling  laughter  from  his  colossal  chest  at  the  vain 
toil  of  the  heart-burning  world  around  him,  while  he  held  on 
his  gay,  endless.  Viking-like  wassail.  Of  a  truth  there  are 
creeds  far  less  frank  and  less  wise  than  his;  and  of  a  truth 
there  are  souls  far  less  honest  and  bold  and  bright.  He  would 
have  lost  life  rather  than  have  broken  his  word;  and  nolle  had 
ever  stained  his  fearless,  careless,  laughter-warmed  lips.  Of 
a  truth  the  mad  duke  had  virtues  the  world  has  not. 

His  eyes  dwelt  now  with  a  great  unspoken  tenderness  on 
Chandos. 

"  Yet  you  are  greater  than  you  were  then,''  he  said,  slowly. 
"  I  know  it — I  who  am  but  a  wine-cup  rioter  and  love  nothing 
but  my  summer-day  fooHng.  You  are  greater;  but  the  har- 
vest you  sow  will  only  be  reaped  over  your  grave." 

"  I  should  be  content  could  I  believe  it  would  be  reaped 
then. " 

"  Be  content,  then.  You  may  be  so." 
*  "  God  knows!  J)o  you  not  think  Marsy  and  Delisle  de  Sales 
and  Linguet  believed,  as  they  suffered  in  their  dungeons  for 
mere  truth  of  speech,  that  the  remembrance  of  future  genera- 
tions would  solace  them?  Bichat  gave  himself  to  premature 
death  for  science's  sake:  does  the  world  once  in  a  year  speak 
his  name?  Y"et  how  near  those  men  are  to  us,  to  be  forgotten! 
A  century,  and  history  will  scarcii  chronicle  them." 

"  Then  why  give  the  wealth  of  your  intellect  to  men?" 

"  Are  there  not  higher  things  than  present  reward  and  the 
mere  talk  of  tongues?  The  monstrari  (/i(/ito  were  scarce  a 
lofty  goal.  We  may  love  Truth  and  strive  to  serve  her,  disre- 
garding what  she  brings  us.  Those  who  need  a  bribe  from 
her  are  not  her  true  believers." 


428  CHANDOS. 

Philippe  d'Orvale  tossed  his  silvery  hair  from  his  eyes — eyea 
of  such  sunny  luster,  of  such  Southern  fires,  still. 

"  Ay!  And  those  who  held  that  sublime  code  of  yours, 
that  cleaving  to  truth  for  truth^s  sake,  where  are  they?  How 
have  they  fared  in  every  climate  and  in  every  age?  Stoned, 
crucified,  burned,  fettered,  broken  on  the  vast  black  granite 
mass  of  the  blind  multitude's  brutality,  of  the  priesthood's 
curse  and  craft!" 

"  True!  Yet  if  through  us,  ever  so  slightly,  the  bondage  of 
the  creeds'  traditions  be  loosened  from  the  lives  they  stifle, 
and  those  multitudes — so  weary,  so  feverish,  so  much  more  to 
be  pitied  than  condemned — become  less  blind,  less  brute,  the 
sacrifice  is  not  in  vain." 

Philippe  d'Orvale  shook  himself  like  a  lion  lashing  to  rage. 

*'  In  your  sense,  no.  But  the  world  reels  back  again  into 
darkness  as  soon  as  a  hand  has  lifted  it  for  awhile  into  light. 
Men  hold  themselves  purified,  civilized;  a  year  of  war,  and 
lust  and  blood-thirst  rage  untamed  in  all  their  barbarism;  a 
taste  of  slaughter,  and  they  are  wolves  again!  There  was 
truth  in  the  old  feudal  saying,  '  Oignez,  vilain,  il  vous 
poindra;  poignez  vilain,  il  vous  oindra. '  Beat  the  multitudes 
you  talk  of  with  a  despot's  sword,  and  they  will  lick  your  feet; 
touch  them  with  a  Christ-like  pity,  and  they  will  nail  you  to 
the  cross." 

There  was  terrible  truth  in  the  words:  this  man  of  princely 
blood,  who  disdained  all  scepters  and  wanted  nothing  of  the 
world,  could  look  through  and  through  it  with  his  bold  sunlit 
eyes,  and  see  its  rottenness  to  the  core. 

Chandos  sighed  as  he  heard. 

"You  are  right — only  too  right.  Yet,  even  while  they 
crouch  to  the  tyrant's  saber,  how  bitterly  they  need  release! 
even  while  tbey  crucify  their  teachers  and  their  saviors,  how 
little  they  know  what  they  do!  They  may  forsake  themselves; 
but  they  should  not  be  forsaken. " 

Philippe  d'Orvale  looked  on  him  with  a  light  soft  as  wom- 
en's tears  in  his  eyes,  and  dashed  his  hand  down  on  the  ala- 
baster. 

"  Chandos,  you  live  twenty  centuries  too  late.  You  would 
have  been  crowned  in  Athens,  and  throned  in  Asia.  But 
here,  as  a  saving  grace,  they  will  call  you — '  mad!'  " 

Chandos  smiled. 

*'  Well,  if  they  do?  The  title  has  its  honors.  It  was 
hooted  against  Solon  and  Socrates." 

At  that  moment  they  were  no  longer  alone;  a  foreign  min- 
ister entered  the  reception-room.     Only  at  Philippe  d'Orvdle'a 


CHANDOS.  439 

house  id  Paris  was  Chandos  ever  seen  by  any  members  of  the 
circles  which  long  ago  had  followed  him  as  their  leader.  With 
the  statesmen,  tiie  thinkers,  the  scholars  of  Europe  he  had 
association:  but  with  the  extravagant  and  aristocratic  worlds 
where  he  had  once  reigned  he  had  no  fellowship;  and  the 
younger  generation,  who  chiefly  ruled  them,  had  no  remem- 
brance and  but  little  knowledge  of  what  his  career  once  had 
been  in  those  sj^lendid  butterfly -frivolities,  those  Tyriau  pur- 
ples of  a  glittering  reign.  A  Turkish  lily,  when  all  its  pomp 
of  color  and  of  blossom  has  been  shaken  down  in  the  wind  and 
withered,  is  not  more  rapidly  forgotten  than  the  royalty  of  a 
fashionable  fame  when  once  reverse  has  overtaken  it.  But 
his  name  had  power,  though  of  a  widely  different  sort;  and  its 
influence  was  great.  Science  saw  in  him  its  co-revolutionist 
against  tradition;  weary  and  isolated  thinkers  battling  with 
the  apathy  or  the  antagonism  of  men  found  in  him  their  com- 
panion and  their  chief;  young  and  ardent  minds  came  in  eager 
gratitude  to  his  leadership;  the  churches  stoned,  the  scholars 
reverenced  him;  the  peoples  vaguely  wondered  at  him,  and 
told  from  mouth  to  mouth  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  his  life. 
From  the  deep,  silent  heart  of  old  Italian  cities,  where  many 
of  his  years  passed,  his  words  came  to  the  nations,  and  pierced 
ears  most  dead  and  closed  to  him,  and  carried  far  their  seed  of 
freedom,  which  would  sink  in  the  soil  of  public  thought,  and 
bear  full  harvest  only,  as  Philippe  d'Orvule  had  said,  above 
his  grave.  Men  knew  that  there  was  might  in  this  man,  who 
had  risen  from  a  voluptuary's  delight  to  face  destruction,  and 
had  forced  out  of  adversity  the  gold  of  strength  and  of  wis- 
dom. They  listened — even  those  who  cursed  him — because  ho 
spoke  too  widely  truth.  They  listened,  and  they  found  that 
an  infinite  patience,  an  exhaustless  toleration,  a  deep  and  pas- 
sionless calm,  had  become  the  temper  of  his  intellect  and  of  his 
teaching.  It  was  too  pure,  too  high,  too  profound  for  them, 
and  too  wide  in  grasp;  but  they  listened,  and  vaguely  caught 
a  loftier  tincture,  a  more  serene  justice,  from  him. 

The  career  wliifli  his  youth  had  projected,  in  the  splendid 
ideals  of  its  faith  and  its  desire,  could  have  been  possible  only 
in  the  ages  when  the  world  was  young,  and  the  scepter  of  a 
king  could  gather  the  countless  hosts  as  wiih  a  shepherd's 
love  into  one  fold,  under  tiie  great  Syrian  stars — when  the  life 
of  a  man  could  be  as  one  long  magnificence  of  Oriental  day, 
with  death  itself  but  the  setting  of  a  cloudless  sun,  and  the 
after-glow  of  fame  a  trail  of  light  to  natiotis  East  and  West. 
The  dreams  of  his  youth  hud  been  imjiossible:  yet  one  thing 
remained  to  him  of  them — their  loyalty  to  men  and  their  for- 


430  CHANDOS. 

bearauce  with  them.  In  one  sense  he  was  greater  than  his  fa- 
ther had  been:  statesmen  mold  the  actions  of  the  Present, 
but  thinkers  form  the  minds  of  the  Future.  It  is  the  vaster 
power  of  the  two. 

It  was  late  when  he  left  the  Hotel  d^Orvale.  He  had  spent 
the  hours  with  some  of  the  most  eminent  statesmen  of  the  con- 
tinent. All  men  of  mark  heard  hie  opinions  with  eagerness 
and  with  deference:  a  man  who  had  in  him  the  brilliance  of  a 
Pericles,  and  who  lived  now  as  simply  as  an  anchorite,  who 
had  the  j^owers  that  could  have  ruled  an  empire,  and  who  was 
content  with  the  meditative  life,  the  impersonal  ambiiions,  of 
a  career  of  which  no  material  recompense  was  the  goal,  per- 
plexed them  and  impressed  them.  When  he  had  had  the  op- 
portunity, he  had  never  sought  either  rank  or  state  power; 
now  that  his  intellect  was  his  only  treasury,  he  never  sought 
to  purchase  with  it  either  riches  or  the  revival  of  his  lost 
dignities.  They  did  not  comiDrehend  him;  but  the  absolute 
absence  of  all  personal  ambition  impressed  them  in  one  who 
when  his  word  was  omnipotent  had  never  exercised  it  to  obtain 
the  place  and  the  power  which  made  up  their  own  aims,  and 
who  now  gave  his  j^ears  and  his  thoughts  to  the  search  of  truth, 
unheeding  what  it  brought  him.  They  wondered  that,  with 
his  fame,  he  endeavored  to  attain  no  material  rewards,  no 
political  influence;  in  that  wonder  they  missed  the  whole  key 
of  his  character.  He  had  been  too  proud  ever  to  be  attracted 
by  the  vulgarities  of  social  distinctions  in  the  years  when  any 
could  have  been  his  for  the  asking;  now  the  same  temper  re- 
mained with  him.  Then,  as  a  careless  voluptuary,  he  had 
smiled  at  and  jiitied  those  who  wasted  the  golden  days  in  the 
feverish  pursuit  of  ephemeral  renowns;  now,  as  a  great  writer, 
he  had  the  same  marvel,  the  same  contempt,  for  the  minds 
which  could  stoop  their' mighty  strength  to  seek  a  monarches 
favor  or  a  court's  caprice  to  gain  a  Garter  ribbon  or  to  form 
a  six-months'  ministry.  The  strife  and  fret  of  party  had 
little  more  dignity  in  his  eyes  than  the  buzzing  and  pushing 
of  bees  to  enter  a  honey-clogged  hive.  The  hero  of  public  life 
is  a  slave,  and  a  slave  who  must  wear  the  livery  of  conven- 
tional forms  and  expedient  fallacies.  Chandos  had  too  much 
in  him  of  the  inoqueur  disdain,  of  the  unfettered  negligence, 
of  his  earlier  years,  to  be  capable  of  seeing  charm  in  that  gilded 
servitude.  He  loved  freedom,  absolute  freedom:  he  could  no 
more  have  lived  without  it  than  he  could  have  lived  without 
air. 

He  knew  that  it  was  well  that  there  should  be  men  who 
would  harness  themselves  to  the  car  of  the  nations,  and  think 


CHANDOS.  431 

that  they  led  history,  while  they  were  in  truth  only  the  driven 
pack-horses  of  human  development  or  national  decadence;  but 
he  would  no  more  have  gone  in  their  shafts  than  an  eagle  will 
wind  a  windlass. 

As  he  went  now,  through  the  lateness  of  the  night,  with  the 
fragrance  of  the  Luxembourg  gardens  on  the  air,  his  thoughts 
WBre  grave  and  far  away.  The  name  of  Clarencieux  had  re- 
awakened in  him  the  old  anguish  of  longing  to  be  once  more 
beneath  the  shelter  of  the  familiar  roof,  the  green  leafage  of 
the  beloved  woods.  It  might  be  a  weakness,  he  knew  it;  but 
the  longing  was  at  times  an  agony  as  intense  as  Napoleon's 
longing,  in  exile,  for  "  the  mere  scent  of  the  earth  in 
Corsica."  To  live  far  sundered  from  the  home  of  his  fathers 
was  the  deadliest  divorce  in  all  his  losses;  years  could  do  noth- 
ing to  temi^er  or  to  soften  that  bitterness;  he  had  bartered 
his  heritage,  and,  Esau-like,  knew  his  self-wrought  disinherit- 
ance eternal. 

The  stillness  of  the  night — so  late  that  the  crowds  had 
thinned,  and  there  were  but  little  noise  and  movement  even  in 
the  greatest  thoroughfares — brought  back  on  his  memory  the 
nights  in  which  he  had  lain  dying  for  a  draught  of  cold  water 
in  the  dens  of  this  brilliant  city— of  the  nights  when,  in  infamy 
and  shame  and  misery,  he  had  sought  to  kill  remembrance 
and  existence  in  joyless  vice  and  opiate  slumbers,  in  orgies 
that  he  loathed,  in  drugged  sleep  that  lulled  his  mind  into  an 
idiot's  vacancy.  That  time  was  vague  and  unreal  to  him  as 
the  phantasms  of  fever  to  the  man  who  awakes  from  them; 
but  he  never  looked  back  to  it  without  a  shudder.  His  fall 
had  been  so  vast,  and  tlie  plank  so  frail  that  alone  had  arrested 
his  headlong  reel  into  a  suicide's  grave  or  a  marlmau's  dark- 
ness! All  men  liad  forsaken  him  then,  save  one — his  enemy 
— forsaken  him; though  their  hands  were  full  of  his  gifts — for- 
saken him,  leaving  him  to  die  like  a  dog.  But  he  had  not  in 
return  or  in  revenge  abandoned  them:  he  knew  the  terrible 
truth  of  the  "  Qui  vitia  odit,  homines  odit,"  and  he  would  not 
let  hatred  of  their  ingratitude  dwell  with  him  and  turn  him 
cynic,  for  he  cleaved  to  tlicni  in  tenderness  still.  Perhaps  in 
this  3'et  more  than  in  all  other  efforts  of  his  later  life  he  kept 
true  to  the  dreams  of  his  youth — this  patience  with  which  he 
loved  men  and  believed  in  their  redeeming  excellence,  even 
through  all  which  might  have  bidden  him,  as  his  foe  had  once 
bidden  him,  "  curse  (iod  and  die!" 

As  he  passed  now  through  the  richer  and  finer  quarters  to- 
ward a  retired  and  little-frequented  street  where  he  had  his 
temporary  dwelling  in  the  center  of  Paris,  he  passed  close  by 


432  CHANDOS. 

the  gates  of  a  ducal  mansion.  Before  them  stood,  among  a 
long  line,  a  carriage  handsomely  appointed,  with  powdered 
servants  and  laced  liveries;  the  gates  were  open,  and  the  court 
was  in  a  blaze  from  a  hundred  lamj^s,  with  lackeys  in  their 
laced  liveries  moving  to  and  ffo.  An  English  minister  was 
coming  out  to  the  equipage,  with  some  light,  costly  furs  thrown 
loosely  over  his  full  dress.  They  looked  at  eacli  other  in  the 
gas-light:  a  moment  was  enough  for  recognition. 

Trevenna  waved  his  hand  toward  his  carriage  with  a  laugh- 
ing smile. 

"  Ah,  mon  prince?  yo^i  on  foot?  How  times  are  changed! 
Get  in;  pray  do.  I'm  very  forgiving,  and  I'll  give  you  a  lift 
for  auld  lang  syne. " 

Chandos  passed  on — without  a  word,  without  a  sign — as 
though  he  had  not  heard.  Yet  men  have  slain  their  foes,  in 
hot  blood  and  cold,  for  less  than  this  mocker's  baseness  and 
outrage. 

The  petty  jeer  of  the  indignity  was  fouler  than  a  wrong 
worthier  of  resentment.  When  the  soldier  of  the  guard  spat 
in  Charles  Stuart's  face,  the  insult  was  the  worse  because  too 
ignominious  for  scorn,  too  low  for  revenge. 

He  went  onward  down  into  the  solitude  of  the  tortuous  wind- 
ing— one  of  those  streets  in  which  bric-a-brac,  and  priceless 
china,  and  old  j)ictures,  and  old  treasures  of  every  sort  are 
heaped  together  in  little,  dark,  unguarded  windows,  and  are 
only  tnid  from  the  shadows  by  the  shine  of  a  diamond  or  the 
shape  of  a  quaint  vase  forcing  itself  up  from  the  dimness  and 
the  dust.  There  came  feebly  toward  him  in  the  gloom  the 
tall,  bowed  form  of  an  old  man,  with  white  hair  floating  on 
his  shoulders,  and  his  hands  feebly  stretched  before  him  in 
the  wavering,  uncertain  movement  of  the  blind.  The  figure 
was  impressive,  with  its  long,  flowing,  black  garments,  and  its 
stern,  antique,  patriai*ch-like  look  so  painfully  in  contrast  with 
the  extreme  feebleness  of  excessive  age  and  that  plaintive, 
flickering  movement  of  the  hands. 

"Oh,  my  God!"  he  was  muttering,  piteously,  *' where  is 
he?  where  is  he?" 

The  grief  and  appeal  of  the  accent,  the  helplessness  of  the 
sightless  action  accompanying  it,  arrested  Chandos.  He 
paused,  and  touched  the  blind  wanderer  on  the  arm. 

"  Whom  are  you  seeking?     Can  I  help  you?" 

The  old  man  stopped  his  slow,  swinging  step,  and  caught 
the  gentleness  of  the  tone  with  the  quickness  to  sound  that 
comijensatcs  for  the  loss  of  sight  in  so  many. 


CHANDOS.  433 

**  I  search  for  my  dog,  sir/'  he  answered.  *'  He  is  my  only 
guide,  and  I  have  lost  him.'' 

"  Lost  him?     How  far  from  this?" 

"Someway.  He  broke  from  me:  children  lured  him,  I 
think.  He  was  very  pretty,  and  the  life  he  led  with  me  was 
but  dull.     It  is  natural  he  should  forsake  me." 

Chandos  listened,  struck  by  the  accent:  he  had  known  what 
it  was  to  have  an  animal  the  sole  friend  left. 

"  Dogs  rarely  forsake  us.  I  should  hope  he  will  come  back 
to  you.     You  can  not  find  your  way  without  him?" 

The  other  shook  his  head  silently — a  grand,  majestic, 
saturnine  old  man,  despite  the  decrei^itude  that  had  bowed  his 
back  and  the  melancholy  sujoplication  in  which  his  trembling 
hands  were  outstretched. 

Chandos  looked  at  him  silently  also:  there  was  something 
in  his  look  and  in  his  manner  which  impressed  him  with  their 
intense  sadness.  No  memory  revived  in  him,  but  comijassiou 
moved  him. 

"  Tell  me  where  you  live:  I  will  see  5'ou  home,"  he  said, 
presently.  It  was  not  in  his  nature  to  leave  any  one  so  aged 
to  wander  wretchedly  and  uncertainly  in  the  darkness  of  the 
atter-mid night.  Trevenna  would  have  enjoyed  stealing  the 
dog  away,  and  leading  the  harassed  creature  round  and  round 
in  a  circle  by  a  thousand  mystifications;  but  to  Chandos  there 
was  something  of  positive  pain  in  the  sight  of  any  human  be- 
ing stranded  in  the  midst  of  that  peopled  city  for  sheer  need 
of  a  hand  stretched  out  to  him.  Men  had  been  false  to  him; 
but  he  remained  loyally  true  to  them. 

The  blind  man  turned  with  an  involuntary  start  of  wonder 
and  gratitude. 

"  You  are  very  good,  sir!  Will  it  not  trouble  you?"  he 
said,  hesitatingly.  His  ear  told  him  that  the  voice  which  ad- 
dressed him  was  the  voice  of  a  person  of  gentle  blood. 

"  Far  from  it.  Men  must  be  very  heartless  if  they  could  all 
leave  you  to  need  such  a  trifle  as  that. " 

"Men  owe  mo  nothing,"  said  the  other,  curtly,  whilst  he 
went  on  to  tell  his  residence. 

Chandos  said  no  more,  but  went  thither,  slackening  his  })ace 
to  the  halting  step  of  the  one  he  guided.  It  was  some  little 
time  before  he  could  find  the  place  he  was  directed  to;  when 
he  did  so,  it  was  a  tall,  frowning,  ruined  house,  jammed 
amidst  many  others,  with  the  shutters  up  against  the  lower 
windows,  and  poverty  told  by  ;dl  its  rambling  timbers. 

"  Open,  sir,  since  you  are  kind  enough  to  take  pity  on  me," 
said  the  blind,  man,  as  he  gave  him  a  key,  to  which  the  craz^ 


434  CHANDOS. 

door  yielded  easily.     "  My  room,  such  as  it  is,  is  the  first  on 
the  fifth  story. " 

It  was  a  miserable  chamber  enough,  bare  and  desolate,  with 
a  rough  pallet  bed,  and  an  unspeakable  nakedness  and  want 
about  it.  A  little  lamp  burned  dully,  and  threw  its  yellow 
light  on  the  peculiar  and  striking  figure  of  the  man  he  had 
guided;  and  he  looked  at  him  curiously — a  man  of  ninety  win- 
ters, with  the  dark  olive  of  his  skin  furrowed  like  oak-bark, ' 
and  his  sweeping,  pointed  beard  snow-white — a  man  who  had 
suffered  much,  needed  much,  endured  much,  and  possibly 
done  much  evil,  in  his  day,  yet  commanding  and  solemn  in  his 
excessive  years  as  the  figure  of  a  Belisarius  sightless  and 
poverty-stricken  and  forsaken  by  those  for  whom  he  had  given 
his  life-blood.  He  turned  to  Chandos  with  a  stately  and 
touching  action. 

"  Sir,  who  you  are  I  can  not  tell;  but  from  my  soul  I  thank 
you,  from  my  heart  I  would  bless  you — if  I  dared." 

Chandos  lingered,  leaning  against  the  barren,  unsightly 
wall.  He  might  be  in  a  den  of  thieves,  for  aught  he  knew; 
but  there  was  that  in  the  Israelite  (as  he  justly  deemed  him) 
that  moved  him  to  interest.  Since  the  glory  of  his  summer- 
day  world  had  closed  on  him,  he  had  gone  far  down  into  the 
depths  of  human  suffering  and  human  sin;  he  had  known  life 
in  its  darkest  and  in  its  worst,  and  he  evaded  nothing  to  which 
he  could  bring  either  aid  or  consolation.  The  mingled  in- 
firmity and  wisdom  of  his  glorious  manhood  had  been  to  abhor 
and  shun  every  sight  and  shape  of  pain;  since  he  had  tasted 
the  bitterness  of  ruin,  he  had  passed  by  no  pain  that  he  could 
hope  to  succor. 

"  You  should  not  be  alone  at  your  years,''  he  said,  gently. 
"  Have  you  nothing  but  this  lost  dog  to  take  heed  of  you?'* 

"  Nothing,  sir:  7ie  is  gone  now.*' 

"  I  trust  not.  I  will  try  and  find  him  for  you.  Pardon 
me,  but  at  your  age  it  is  rare  to  be  wholly  solitary.'* 

"  Is  it?"  said  the  blind  man,  with  a  sententious  melancholy. 
"I  thought  the  reverse.  We  have  outlived  our  due  time. 
We  have  seen  all  die  around  us;  we  ought  to  be  dead  our- 
selves. " 

Chandos  was  silent;  he  stood,  thoughtful  and  almost  sad- 
dened by  the  Israelite's  words.  He  was  alone  himself — he, 
for  whom  the  world  had  once  been  one  u  ide  palace,  filled  with 
courtiers  and  friends;  he  looked  to  be  so  alone  to  his  grave. 

At  that  moment  there  came  the  rush  of  eager  feet,  the  pant- 
ing of  eager  breath;  the  unlatched  door  of  the  room  was  burst 
open.     A  little  dog  of  the  Maltese  breed  scoured  across  the 


CHANDOS.  435 

floor,  and  leaped  on  the  old  man  with  frantic  caresses;  its 
desertion  had  been  but  for  a  moment,  and  its  conscience  and 
its  love  had  soon  brought  it  back.  The  Jew  took  it  fondly  in 
his  arms,  and  murmured  tender  names  over  it;  then  he  turned 
his  blind  eyes  on  Ohandos. 

"  Sir,  I  thank  my  little  truant  that  through  his  abandon- 
ment I  learned  that  one  man  lived  so  mercifu]  as  you." 

"  There  are  many;  do  not  doubt  that.  Forgive  me  if  I  seem 
to  force  your  confidence,  but  I  would  gladly  know  if  I  can 
aid  you.  Eich  I  am  not,  but  there  might  be  ways  in  which 
I  could  assist  you. " 

He  spoke  very  gently;  this  old  man,  grand  as  any  sculpture 
of  Abraham  or  Agamemnon,  in  his  extreme  loneliness,  in  his 
extreme  poverty,  awoke  his  sympathy. 

The  Hebrew  drew  his  bent  form  straight,  with  a  certain  un- 
conscious majesty. 

/'  Sir,  my  confidence  you  can  not  have;  but  it  is  only  meet 
that  you  should  know  I  am  one  who  often  has  worked  much 
evil,  and  who  has  been  once  branded  as  a  felon.'' 

Chandos  looked  at  him  in  silence  a  moment;  he  could  be- 
lieve that  evil  had  left  its  trace  among  the  dark  furrows  of  the 
somber  and  stern  face  he  looked  on,  but  criminal  shame 
seemed  to  have  no  place  with  the  Jew's  patriarchal  calm  and 
dignity. 

"  If  it  be  so,  there  may  be  but  the  more  cause  that  you  need 
aid.     Speak  frankly  with  me." 

'*  There  are  those  who  say  my  people  never  speak  except  to 
lie,"  said  the  Hebrew,  briefly.  It  is  untrue.  But  frank  I 
can  not  be  with  you — with  any.  Could  I  have  been  so,  I 
were  not  thus  now." 

"  How?  Did  you  refuse  the  truth,  or  was  it  denied  you?" 

"  Both.  I  heard  a  story  once — whether  fact  or  romance  I 
can  not  tell;  it  struck  me.  I  will  tell  it  you.  There  was 
an  old  soldier  of  the  Grande  Armeo,  who  was  bidden  by  his 
chief  to  execute  some  secret  service  and  never  sj^eak  of  it.  He 
did  it;  his  absence  on  its  errand  was  discovered;  he  was  tried 
for  desertion  or  disobedience,  I  forget  which.  ISTapoleon  was 
present  at  the  trial;  the  accused  looked  in  the  face  of  his  mus- 
ter for  permission  to  clear  himself  by  reveahng  the  truth;  the 
face  was  chill  as  stone,  mute  as  steel;  there  wnt  no  eonscuf  in 
it.  The  soldier  bared  his  head,  and  held  his  peace;  he  under- 
went his  chastisement  in  silence;  he  muttered  only  ever  after, 
in  insanity,  '  iSilenco  a  he  viori !'  " 

Chandos  hoard,  moved  to  more  than  surprise.  He  saw  that 
this  poverty-worn  blind  Hebrew  was  no  common  criminal  and 

6-2a  baJt  "•* 


436  CHAKDOS. 

had  had  no  common  fate.     He  leaned  forward  and  looked  at 
him  more  earnestly. 

"  And  the  soldier's  doom — was  that  yours?"  he  asked. 

The  Jew  bent  his  snow-white  head,  pressing  the  little  nest- 
ling dog  closer  to  his  bosom. 

"  Much  such  a  one.'' 

"  You  were  of  the  army,  then?" 

"  No;  but  I  had  a  chief  as  pitiless  as  Napoleon.  No  mat- 
ter! he  had  the  right  to  be  so.     It  is  not  for  me  to  speak." 

The  words  were  spoken  with  the  patience  of  his  race,  an  in- 
finite pain  passed  over  the  harsh,  saturnine  sternness  of  his 
face. 

"  But  you  would  seem  to  say  that  by  silence  you  were 
wronged.     Tell  me  more  plainly. " 

A  sigh  escaped  the  close-pressed  lips  of  the  aged  man. 

"  Sir,  you  have  been  good  to  me;  it  is  not  for  me  to  deny 
what  I  can  justly  tell.  That  is  not  much.  I  w^as  in  the  em- 
ploy of  an  Englishman;  we  drove  an  evil  trade^a  trade  in 
men's  ruin,  in  men's  necessities,  in  men's  desperation.  It  is 
a  common  trade  enough,  and  there  are  hundreds  who  drive  in 
their  carriages,  and  live  amidst  the  great,  who  have  gained 
their  wealth  by  that  trade  and  by  no  other.  I  was  a  haixi  man, 
a  shrewd,  a  merciless;  1  asked  my  pound  of  flesh,  and  I  cut  it 
remorselessly.  Life  had  been  bitter  with  me;  it  had  baffled 
me  when  I  would  have  done  righteousness;  it  had  denied  me 
when  I  would  have  sought  justice:  it  had  damned  me  because 
of  my  wandei'ing  race:  with  the  book  of  my  religion  in  their 
hands,  Christians  flouted  me  and  scourged  me— a  Jew  dog,  a 
Jew  cheat,  a  Jew  liar!  If  I  said  truth,  none  believed  me;  if  I 
did  honestly,  all  laughed,  and  thought  that  I  had  some  deeper 
scheme  of  villainy  beneath.  I  would  have  acted  well  with 
men,  but  they  mocked  me;  and  then — I  took  my  revenge.  I 
do  not  say  it  was  right;  but  it  was  human." 
'  He  paused;  the  died-out  light  began  to  gather  in  his  sunken 
eyes,  the  memories  of  manhood  to  kindle  on  his  brown  and 
withered  face;  his  voice  grew  stronger  and  deeper,  as  it 
thrilled  with  the  remembrance  of  other  days.  Chandos  stood 
silent,  looking  on  him  with  a  strange  force  of  interest,  while 
the  dull  feeble  flickering  of  the  oil-flame  shed  its  faint  illumi- 
nation on  the  old  man's  Syrian-like  form. 

"  I  was  sorely  tossed,  and  beaten  and  reviled;  I  became  bit- 
ter, and  keen,  and  cruel.  I  was  like  iron  to  those  Gentiles 
who  needed  me  and,  when  they  needed,  cringed.  I  said  in 
my  soul,  '  You  call  me  a  Jew  robber:  well,  you  shall  feel  my 
knife.  *    And  yet  I  declare  that,  till  thej  made  me  so,  I  had 


CHANDOS.  437 

served  men  and  striven  to  make  them  love  me — hard  as  it  is 
for  a  poor  man,  and  a  Jew,  to  gain  a  friend  among  Christians! 
They  have  stolen  our  God;  but  they  only  blaspheme  in  His 
name,  and  call  the  people  whose  creed  they  borrow  by  the 
rilest  obscenities  of  their  streets!  So  I  grew  like  a  flint,  and 
I  checked  not  at  cunning.  One  innocent  may  be  wrongly 
suspected  until  he  is  made  the  thing  that  the  libel  has  called 
him.  I  was  a  usurer:  you  know  what  that  is — a  man  who 
makes  his  gold  out  of  tears  of  blood,  and  fills  his  caldron  with 
human  flesh  till  its  seething  brews  him  wealth.  I  had  only 
one  softness  in  me:  it  was  my  love  for  my  wife." 

His  voice  quivered  slightly;  even  the  memory  of  the  dead 
love  that  lay  so  far  away  in  the  grave  of  buried  days  had  power 
to  shake  him  like  a  reed. 

"  She  was  as  beautiful  as  the  morning,  twenty  years  or 
more  younger  than  I;  but  she  loved  me  with  a  great  love,  and 
while  she  was  in  my  bosom  she  made  me  seek  to  be  as  she 
was.  Well,  she  died.  My  life  was  dark  as  midnight,  and  my 
heart  was  ice.  For  awhile  I  was  mad;  when  my  senses  came 
to  me,  I  set  myself  to  the  lust  of  gold,  to  the  grinding  out  of 
my  deadly  pain  on  the  lives  that  had  mocked  me.  Thus  I  be- 
came evil,  and  men  cursed  me — justly  then.  I  made  much 
money,  and,  years  after,  I  lost  it,  in  schemes  in  which  it  had 
been  risked.  I  fell  in  the  straits  of  extreme  poverty;  in  them 
I  met,  in  the  dens  of  a  great  city,  an  Englishman  who  was 
good  to  me  and  succored  me.  Afterward  we  entered  into 
negotiations  together;  he  joined  my  old  firm — it  did  not  bear 
my  name;  he  became  it;  in  fact,  I  was  but  his  manager, 
clerk,  subordinate;  but  the  public  still  thought  me  the  prin- 
cipal. He  was  very  clever,  very  able;  he  knew  the.  world 
widely,  and  he  had  fashionable  acquaintances  by  the  hundred. 
Between  us — he  secretly,  I  openly — we  spread  our  nets  very 
far;  we  drew  many  lives  into  the  meshes;  we  made  much 
money — he  did,  at  least;  his  was  the  capital,  his  the  profit;  I 
did  but  the  work  at  a  salary.  AVe  were  always  strictly  to  the 
letter  of  the  law;  but  within  tlio  law  we  were  very  hard.  Oh, 
God!  now  that  I  am  blind  and  forsaken,  I  know  it!  Well, 
meanwhile  my  son  had  come  home  to  me  from  Spain — a  beau- 
tiful, gracious  child,  who  brought  his  mother's  look  in  his  eyes. 
In  him  I  was  almost  happy;  for  him  I  worked  unceasingly; 
thinking  of  him,  I  di  1  my  master's  bidding  with  alacrity  and 
with  little  heed  for  those  who  sulTered.  For  seven  j'ears  my 
boy  grew  up  with  me  from  a  child  to  a  youth;  and  when  he 
smiled  at  me  with  his  mother's  smile,  I  would  have  coined  my 
life,  if  I  could  have  done  so.  to  purchase  him  an  hour's  pleas- 


438  CHANDOS. 

lire.  And  in  those  seven  years  the  firm  had  prospered  marvel- 
ously,  and  my  master — so  I  call  him — made  much  wealth  from 
it  in  secret.  At  the  time  of  the  eighth  or  ninth  year,  when 
jny  son  was  eighteen — " 

He  paused;  though  his  eyes  had  no  sight  in  them,  ho  veiled 
them,  drooping  his  head  in  shame  as  his  words  were  resumed. 

"  The  lad  erred — erred  terribly.  I  can  not  speak  it!  Dis- 
honesty, glossed  over,  had  been  round  him  so  long — it  was  not 
his  crime.  He  saw  ns  thieve:  how  could  he  learn  to  keep  his 
young  hands  pure?  He  forged  my  master's  name,  in  thought- 
lessness, and  thinking,  I  believe,  that  such  money  was  our 
common  due,  since  I  worked  for  it.  I  knew  then  a  worse 
anguish  than  when  my  darling  had  died.  My  master  found  it 
out — he  found  everyUiing  out:  the  boy  was  in  his  jiower.  He 
could  have  sent  the  young  life  to  a  felon's  doom:  he  was 
merciful,  and  he  spared  him.  For  it  let  me  ever  hold  his 
name  in  blessing." 

He  bent  his  head  v.'ith  a  grave,  reverential  gesture,  and  was 
silent  many  momeuts,  his  lips  mutely  moving,  as  though  in 
prayer  for  the  benefactor  of  his  only  son. 

"He  spared  the  youth  always:  let  it  be  ever  remembered 
by  me,"  he  resumed,  while  his  voice  was  broken  and  very 
faint.  "  To  purchase  his  redemption,  to  repay  his  rausom,  I 
gave  my  body  aad  my  mind,  by  night  and  by  day,  to  travail. 
I  did  iniquity  to  buy  my  son's  peace:  that  was  my  sin.  My 
master  was  lenient,  and  spared  him  from  accusation:  that  was 
his  clemency.  By  one  and  by  the  other  the  child  was  saved. 
He  was  so  gentle,  so  loving,  so  bright,  so  full  of  poetic  thoughts 
and  noble  longing;  it  must  have  been  a  mortal  fear  that  ever 
drove  him  to  that  single  crime!  Or  rather,  I  have  thought 
later,  it  was  the  thoughtless  fault  of  a  child  who  did  not  know 
the  error  that  he  did.  Well,  my  master  had  been  pitiful  to 
the  thing  I  loved.  I  owed  him  my  life — more  than  my  life — 
for  that.  A  few  years,  and  the  test  came  to  me.  I  have  said 
inviolate  secrecy  was  kept  on  his  association  witii  the  business 
that  I  conducted.  No  living  creature  guessed  it.  His  own 
friends  by  the  score  were  among  our  clients,  among  our  vic- 
tims; but  none  of  them  ever  dreamed  that  J/e  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  usury  on  which  they  heaped  their  curses.  One 
night  he  had  visited  the  office  (a  thing  he  rarely  did),  and  had 
taken  away  with  him  the  title-deeds  and  family  pajoers  of  one 
whose  extremity  of  need  had  forced  him  to  lodge  them  with 
me  as  security  for  an  immediate  loan.  That  very  night  their 
owner  came  down  in  hot  haste;  he  had  obtained  money  by  a 
sudden  and  marvelous  stroke  of  fortune,  and  was  breathless  to 


CHANDOS.  439 

recover  his  pawned  papers  and  pay  back  the  loan.     The  deeds 
were  not  there!     To  say  ivhere  they  were  would  have  been  to 
betray  my  master.    I  could  not  produce  them;  I  could  not  ex- 
plain their  absence.       TTie  gentleman   was  very  fiery  and 
furious;  he  would  not  wait;  he  demanded  his  papers  back. 
Give  them  I  could  not,  and  I  had  neither  time  nor  means  to 
communicate  with  my  master.     The  gentleman,  hot-blooded 
and  young,  gave  me  into  arrest  for  their  detention  and  disap- 
pearance.     The  trial  ensued.     Since  my  arrest  I  had  watched 
and  waited  for  some  word,  some  sign,  from  my  master  which 
should  tell  me  what  1  should  do.     I  waited  in  vain;  none 
came.     I  was  placed  in  the  dock,  and  tried  for  the  theft  of 
the  deeds.     My  counsel  were  bitter  toward  me  because  I  would 
not  be  frank  with  them  and  explain;  I  could  only  be  silent 
unless  my  master  gave  me  freedom  to  speak.     He  knew  he 
could  trust  me.     Besides,  had  he  not  the  lad's  fame  and  life 
in  his  power?    He  was  there — in  court — listening.     I  looked 
at  him;  he  looked  at  me.    I  read  '  silence  '  hidden  on  his  face, 
as  the  soldier  saw  it  on  Napoleon's.     It  was  enough.     I  was 
silent.     It  was  his  due,  and  my  right  of  obedience.     He  had 
spared  my  son  in  his  error;  I  had  sworn  to  keep  his  secret  till 
death.     The  trial  took  its  course;  they  found  me  guilty.     I 
was  sentenced  to  ten  years'  penal  servitude.     It  was  a  grave 
offense.     The  deeds  were  gone:  they  were  never  found:  I  sup- 
pose my  master  destroyed  them.     It  was  a  fearful  loss  for 
their  owner,  and  they  could  not  choose  but  judge  that  I  had 
held  them  back  or  burned  them,  for  theft  or  for  the  sake  of 
extortion.     I  suffered  the  punishment;  but  I  never  broke  my 
silence. " 

There  was  a  sublime  simplicity,  ah  inexpressible  grandeur, 
on  the  old  man,  as  he  spoke,  bowing  his  head  as  though  borne 
down  by  the  weight  of  that  enforced  burden  of  silence, 
stretching  out  his  trembling  hands  as  though  in  supplication 
to  God  to  witness  how  he  had  kept  his  oath.  , 

Chandos,  where  he  stood  in  the  gloom  of  the  poverty-stricken 
chamber,  uncovered  his  head  with  a  reverent  action  before 
the  sightless  gaze  of  the  blind  man. 

"  Let  the  evil  of  your  life  be  what  it  may,  in  that  martyr- 
dom you  washed  it  out  with  a  nobility  men  seldom  reach." 

His  words  were  low  and  heartfelt:  the  unconscious  dignity 
of  the  self-devotion  and  of  the  fidelity  to  a  promised  word  was 
too  lofty  to  liis  thought  to  be  insulted  with  any  offering  of 
mere  pity. 

A  warmth  of  surprise  and  of  pleasure  passed  over  the 


440  «  CHANDOS. 

withered  olive  face  of  the  Israelite — though  it  faded  almost  in- 
stantly. 

"  It  was  duty/^  he  said,  simply — "  the  duty  of  a  debtor.-'* 

*'  Eather  it  was  the  sacrifice  of  a  martyr.  But  he,  this 
brutal  taskmaster,  who  could  condemn  you  to  such  a  doom, 
who  could  stand  by  and  see  you  suffer  for  his  sake — what  of 
himP' 

"  1  say  nothing  of  him:  he  is  sacred  to  me!" 

"  Sacred!  though  he  cursed  you  thus?'* 

"  Sacred,  because  he  sjoared  my  sou.** 

Chandos  bent  his  head. 

**  I  understand  you;  I  honor  you.  But  it  was  a  terrible 
ordeal.  Few  construe  duty  so.  And  your  son — what  of 
him?** 

"  I  am  as  one  dead  to  him.'* 

Ignatius  Mathias  said  the  words  very  softly,  whilst  over  the 
bronzed,  worn  rigidity  of  his  patient  face  came  the  softer  look 
which  it  only  wore  at  the  thought  of  Agostino. 

*'  Dead  to  him?     Is  he,  then,  so  ungrateful?'* 

The  Hebrew  shook  his  head  with  a  quick  negative  gesture 
of  his  hands. 

"  He  is  never  ungrateful;  he  felt  only  too  vividly,  and  he 
loved  me  well.  But  I  had  sent  him  out  of  the  country  before 
this  happened— sent  him,  my  master  permitting,  to  people  of 
mine  in  Mexico.  It  was  bitter  for  me  to  sever  from  him. 
But  the  lad*s  spirit  was  broken;  I  knew  nothing  but  change  of 
scene  could  ever  restore  him.  Journals  did  not  reach  him 
there  in  the  western  country.  I  learned  that  he  was  recover- 
ing health  and  courage,  and  was  prosecuting  a  career  for  which 
he  had  from  childhood  shown  genius.  I  learned  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  my  arrest  and  of  my  trial;  I  thanked  God;  for  I 
knew  how  it  would  have  grieved  him.  He  might  have  done 
something  very  rash  had  he  heard  that  I  suffered  or  was 
accused.  As  it  was,  I  bade  them  tell  him  I  was  dead.  It 
would  cause  him  pain,  great  pain — for  he  loved  me,  strange 
as  it  may  seem  that  he  should — but  less  pain  than  the  shame 
that  must  have  fallen  on  him  with  the  other  knowledge.  It 
was  weak  in  me,  perhaps,  but  I  could  not  bear  that  my  only 
son  should  think,  with  the  world,  that  I  could  be  guilty  of 
that  crime.  And  if  he  had  not  thought  it,  it  would  have  been 
worse;  he  would  have  been  gtdled  to  some  act  of  desjpferation. 
He  heard,  as  I  say,  of  my  death;  he  suffered,  but  less  than  he 
would  have  suffered  knowing  the  truth,  knowing  the  punish- 
ment I  underwent.     Yet  the  deadliest  thing  in  my  chastise- 


CHANDOS.  441 

ment  was  that  I  could  never  look  on  "his  face,  never  listen  ta 
his  voice,  never  let  him  hear  that  I  lived!" 

The  old  man's  voice  faltered  slightly;  even  his  strength, 
that  had  been  like  wrought  iron  to  endure,  and  that  had  held 
his  soul  ill  patience  for  so  long,  could  not  look  back  at  that 
time  of  torture  and  keep  its  force  unbroken. 

"  At  the  end  of  ten  years  I  was  liberated.  They  had  not 
been  cruel  to  me  as  a  convict.  They  pitied  my  age,  I  think, 
thougii  at  first  they  had  little  mercy,  because  they  held  me  a 
Jew  thief.  I  was  free— a  beggar,  of  course;  and  at  eighty- 
four  years  one  can  not  begin  Uie  world  again.  Besides,  1  was 
as  one  branded:  go  where  I  would,  the  police  followed  me, 
and  warned  others  of  me;  I  was  a  leper  and  a  pariah  in  the 
midst  of  men.  I  did  not  starve,  for  my  people  are  good  to 
the  helpless;  but  all  thought  me  guilty,  and  no  creature  trusted 
me.  I  heard  of  my  darling,  of  my  son:  he  was  prosperous. 
He  was  achieving  fame  and  success  in  the  life  he  had  chosen; 
he  was,  I  hoped,  happy.  I  could  not  be  so  brutal,  so  selfish, 
as  to  seek  him  out  and  say,  *  Behold,  your  father  lives!'  when 
he  must  have  found  in  his  father  a  convicted  felon  just  set 
free  from  his  public  punishment.  I  could  not  blight  his  youth 
and  his  peace  by  rising  up  as  it  were  from  the  grave  and 
forcing  in  on  him  my  age,  my  poverty,  my  disgrace,  as  the 
world  hell  it.  He  had  mourned  for  me,  and  ceased  to  mourn 
long  before:  I  could  not  o^ien  his  wounds  afresh;  I  could  not 
humiliate  him  with  a  criminal's  claim  on  him.  Isot  that  I 
wronged  him  ever,  not  that  I  over  doubted  him;  let  me  have 
been  what  I  should,  I  knew  his  heart  would  be  tender  to  me 
and  his  roof  be  offered  me  in  shelter.  But  hecmise  I  knew,  I 
could  not  bring  that  wretchedness  on  him;  I  could  not  injure 
him  in  the  world's  sight  by  standing  by  him  a  liberated  felon; 
I  could  not  torture  him  by  showing  him  my  wrists,  on  which 
the  chains  of  the  convict  gang  had  weighed,  by  bidding  him 
look  back  with  me  upon  my  prison  cell,  my  prison  shame.  I 
left  him  to  believe  me  dead.  I  never  looked  upon  his  face  ex- 
cept by  stealth.  I  never  listened  to  his  voice  except  standing 
hidden  in  some  dark  archway  to  hear  him  speak  as  he  passed 
by  me  in  the  streets.  I  have  watched  for  hours  under  the 
shelter  of  green  leaves  to  catch  one  glance  of  him  as  he  came 
forth.  I  have  waited  for  a  whole  night  through,  in  storm  or 
snow,  to  see  him  leave  some  house  of  jileasure  or  some  labor 
of  his  art.  It  was  my  only  thonglit,  my  only  joy.  I  thanked 
God  that  I  still  lived  in  the  days  when  I  had  looked  a  moment 
on  his  beauty.  And  now  that  too  is  gone.  I  am  blind,  and 
I  have  nothing  left  except  to  listen  for  the  echo  of  his  step!" 


443  CHAKDOS. 

Silence  followed  his  closing  words;  his  head  sunk,  his  handa 
"were  pressed  together  like  one  who  is  tortured  beyond  his 
strength.  All  answer,  all  consolation,  seemed  mockery  beside 
the  supreme  renunciation  and  desolation  of  this  living  sacrifice 
of  an  immeasurable  love,  that  gave  itself  to  martyrdom  with- 
out a  thought  of  its  own  devotion,  without  a  memory  of  the 
fastness  of  its  own  unasked  and  unrewarded  sacrifice. 

Veneration,  strong  as  his  pity,  moved  the  blind  man's 
auditor  as  he  heard;  the  heroism  of  the  abnegation  was  noble 
in  his  sight,  with  a  nobility  that  no  words  could  dare  taint  or 
outrage  with  either  compassion  or  homage — a  nobility  that 
raised  the  Hebrew  outcast  to  a  loftier  height  than  the  great  of 
the  earth  often  reach,  than  the  sunlight  of  a  fair  fate  ever 
gives. 

"  Your  Psalmist  said  that  he  had  never  beheld  the  right- 
eous forsaken,  nor  tlie  seed  of  the  virtuous  begging  their 
bread,''  he  said,  slowly,  at  length.  "  How  is  it  that  you, 
then,  are  poor?    You  should  be  in  the  smile  of  your  God.'* 

The  Israelite  sighed  wearily. 

"  It  has  ever  seemed  to  me  that  David  spoke  in  a  bitter 
irony.  Yonder  in  Syria,  as  here  among  us,  sin  throve,  doubt- 
less, and  loyal  faith  passed  unnoticed,  unrecompeused  by  a 
crust.  Yet  I  do  not  say  this  for  myself.  I  merited  all  I 
suffered.  I  was  merciless;  I  lived  to  want  mercy.  It  was 
very  just." 

There  was  the  inexorable  meting  out  of  the  Mosaic  code  to 
his  own  past,  and  to  his  own  errors,  in  the  still,  calm,  iron 
resignation. 

"  Moreover,"  he  added,  with  a  certain  light  and  hope  that 
kindled  the  faded  fire  of  his  sightless  eyes,  "  if  we  follow  duty 
because  it  brings  us  gold  and  i^eace  and  man's  applause,  where 
is  there  effort  in  the  choice  of  it?  It  is  only  when  it  is  hard 
that  there  can  be  any  loyalty  in  its  acceptance.  Not  that  I 
should  speak  of  this.  I  loved  evil  and  avarice  and  cruelty 
too  long,  and  followed  them  too  fondly. " 

"  At  the  least,  your  atonement  might  outweigh  the  crime 
of  a  Cain!" 

The  Hebrew  sighed  wearily  again. 

"  Can  evil  ever  be  outweighed?  I  doubt  it.  "We  may 
strive  to  atone,  but  we  can  never  efface.  The  past  work 
spreads,  and  spreads,  and  spreads,  like  a  river  broken  from 
its  banks;  and  all  the  coffer-dams  we  raise  in  our  atonement 
can  not  stay  the  rushing  of  the  waters  we  have  once  let  loose. 
Ah!  if  when  evil  is  begun  we  knew  where  it  would  stretch. 


CHANDOS.  443 

men's  hands  would  be  kept  pure  from  very  dread  of  their  own 
awful  omnipotence  for  ruin/' 

The  words  died  faintly  away.  Remorse  had  too  wide  a  part 
in  this  man's  memories  for  any  thought  that  he  redeemed  his 
past  crimes  by  his  present  sacrifice  to  have  power  to  enter  into 
him  in  any  form  of  consolation. 

He  recovered  himself  with  an  effort,  raising  his  blind  eyes 
as  though  he  could  still  read  the  face  of  the  one  who  listened 
to  him. 

"  Sir,  you  have  heard  me  with  a  gentle  patience.  I  thank 
you.  I  never  spoke  of  these  things  until  I  spoke  them  now  to 
you.  Your  voice  is  sweet  and  compassionate;  it  seems  to  me 
as  though  I  had  once  heard  it  before  now.  Will  you  tell  me 
your  name  among  men?" 

"  Willingly;  though  I  have  no  memory  that  we  have  ever 
met  before.     My  name  is  Chandos." 

A  change,  as  intense  as  though  some  sudden  pang  of  disease 
had  seized  him,  convulsed  the  Israelite's  whole  frame;  his  thin 
withered  lips  closed  tight,  as  though  to  hold  in  words  that 
rushed  to  them;  his  hands  clinched  together.  A  revulsion 
passed  over  him,  as  if  the  whole  dark,  poisonous,  pent  tide  of 
his  past  years  swept  in,  killing  with  their  return  all  the  higher 
and  better  thoughts  that  but  now  had  ruled  him. 

"  Do  you  know  me?"  asked  Chandos,  in  surprise. 

The  Spanish  Jew  answered  with  an  effort,  and  his  voice  was 
harsh  and  jarring — 

"  I  know  your  name,  sir;  all  the  world  does." 

Chandos  looked  at  him  with  aveakened  curiosity:  the  agita- 
tion which  this  old  man  showed  at  his  recognition  was  scarcely 
compatible  with  the  mere  scant  knowledge  of  his  public  repu- 
tation. Still,  no  remembrance  of  the  solitary  morning  in  the 
porphyry  chamber,  when  he  had  seen  the  Castalian,  came  to 
him.  In  that  terrible  hour  he  had  only  been  conscious  of  a 
sea  of  unfamiliar  faces — thirsty  faces  eager  for  his  wealth, 
strange  faces  forcing  themselves  in  to  see  the  ruin  of  his  race, 
and  hungry,  insolent  faces  gathered  there  to  be  the  witnesses 
of  his  abdication  and  his  fall.  He  remembered  them  distinct- 
ly no  more  than  Scipio  could  have  remembered  the  features  of 
each  unit  of  the  libelous  crowd  that  thronged  about  him  to  at- 
taint his  honor  and  discrown  his  dignity,  until  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  Temple  of  Ju])iter  he  rebuked  them  with  one 
word — "  Zania." 

"  If  you  know  my  niime,  then,"  he  said,  after  a  slight 
pause,  "  I  hope  you  will  let  it  be  a  guarantee  to  you  that  I 
will  do  my  utmost  to  serve  vou.  if  vou  wijl  but  shovv  me  the 


444  CHANDOS. 

way.  You  interest  me  powerfully,  and  I  honor  you  from  my 
heart.     Can  I  not  help  you;'' 

The  old  man  turned  away,  and  leaned  over  the  lamp,  so 
shading  it  that  the  light  burned  low;  he  had  learned  the  mar- 
velous self-guidance  of  the  blind  in  those  matters,  and  knew 
by  its  warmtli  that  the  flame  was  high  and  fell  upon  his  face. 

"  Xo  one  can  help  me,  sin  That  I  may  be  forgotten  is  all 
I  ask.'' 

"  Do  you  mistrust  my  willingness,  then?  I  hope  not,"  said 
Chandos,  gently.  He  noted  the  harsh,  abrupt  change  in  the 
Jew's  manner;  but  he  thought  it  might  be  but  the  weariness 
and  waywardness  of  old  age  and  long  and  bitter  endurance. 

"  I  mistrust  you  in  nothing,"  said  the  Hebrew,  while  his 
voice  was  very  low.  "  But  I  need  no  aid:  my  people  will  not 
let  me  want.  I  thank  you  for  your  goodness;  and  J  bid  3'ou 
remember  me  no  more." 

There  was  a  mingled  austerity  and  appeal  in  the  tone  that 
gave  it  a  singular  vibration  of  feeling;  in  it  there  was  some- 
thing like  the  thrill  of  shame. 

Chandos  lingered  a  moment  still;  he  was  loath  to  leave  the 
old  and  sightless  sufferer  to  his  solitude,  yet  he  saw  that  his 
presence  was  unwelcome  now,  however  gratitude  forbade  the 
Israelite  to  say  it. 

"  But  your  i^eople  forsake  you,"  he  persisted,  gently;  "  you 
have  but  a  dog  for  your  friend.  I  have  known  what  such  soli- 
tude is:  I  would  gladly  aid  you  in  yours.  Will  you  not  trust 
me  with  your  name,  at  the  least? — or  your  son's  name?" 

The  Hebrew  turned  resolutely  away,  though  his  voice  trem- 
bled as  he  replied — 

"  JVIy  son's  will  never  pass  my  lips.  Mine  was  buried  for- 
ever in  my  felon's  cell.  1  have  told  you — I  am  dead!  Leave 
me,  sir;  and  believe  me  an  ingrate,  if  you  wilh  I  have  been 
many  things  that  are  worse." 

Chandos  looked  at  him  regretfully,  wonaeringly;  he  was 
loath  to  quit  the  chamber  in  which  so  strange  and  so  nameless 
a  tale  had  been  unfolded  to  him. 

"  There  is  nothing  worse;  but  I  shall  credit  no  evil  of  you," 
he  answered;  "  and  when  you  need  friendshijj  or  assistance, 
think  of  my  name,  and  send  to  me." 

There  was  no  reply:  the  face  of  the  blind  man  was  turned 
from  him.  He  waited  a  moment  longer,  then  went  out,  and 
closed  the  narrow  door  of  the  room,  leaving  the  Hebrew  to  his 
loneliness. 

He  would  willingly  have  done  more  here,  but  he  knew  not 
how. 


CHANDOS.  445 

The  little  dog,  sole  companion  of  the  Castiliau's  solitude, 
nestling  to  him,  as  the  doer  closed,  with  caressing  fondness, 
felt  great  tears  fall  slowly  one  by  one  upon  its  pretty  head,  and 
lifted  itself  eagerly  to  fondle  closer  in  the  old  man's  bosom. 
But  Ignatius  Mathias  paid  it  no  heed;  he  had  no  answering 
"word  for  it:  his  hands  were  wrung  together  in  an  agony. 

"  Oh,  God!^'  he  murmured,  "  and  I  lent  my  aid  to  rob,  to 
ruin,  to  destroy  him!  Oh,  God!  why  could  I  not  die  before 
he  heaped  the  fire  on  my  guilty  head,  with  his  gentle  words, 
with  his  pitying  mercy?" 


CHAPTER  VII. 

*' PALE  COMME  UN"  BEAU   SOIK  D^iUTOMNE." 

As  Chandos  descended  the  staircase,  he  paused  to  ask  a 
woman,  who  seemed  mistress  of  the  house,  the  Hebrew's  name. 
She  gave  him  the  alias  by  which  the  old  man  was  known  there. 
It  told  him  nothing;  the  real  name  would  scarcely  have  told 
more.  The  whole  time  of  his  adversity  was  ahnost  a  blank  in 
his  memory,  blotted  out  at  the  moment  of  his  suffering  by 
that  suffering's  sheer  intensity,  and  effaced  yet  more  utterly, 
later  on,  by  the  gambler's  orgies  into  which  for  a  year  he  had 
sunk  without  an  effort  at  redemption.  It  seemed  to  him  some- 
times now  that  the  cloudless  life  he  had  led  ere  then  must 
have  been  the  golden  and  lotus-steeped  dream  of  some  sum- 
mer night;  of  the  darkness  wliich  had  followed  on  its  ending 
he  had  barely  more  recollection  than  a  man  has  of  the  phan- 
tasma  of  fever.  Between  the  night  when  he  had  first  learned 
his  irreparable  losses  and  that  on  which  he  had  been  struck 
down  by  his  foe  in  the  court  of  the  Temple,  all  was  a  blank  to 
him,  from  which  a  few  broken  points  of  terrible  remembrance 
alone  stood  out — the  sole  measure-marks  in  that  wide  waste  of 
desolation. 

The  stairs  were  narrow  and  crooked,  ill  lit  by  a  dusky  oil- 
lamp  flickering  low  in  its  socket.  Something  in  the  house  had 
seemed  familiar  to  him,  and  as  he  passed  downward  he  knerv 
it  again.  It  was  the  place  in  which  ho  had  lain  dying  and  un- 
conscious, with  the  winter  stars  looking  down  through  the 
broken  garret-roof,  and  the  dog's  fidelity  alone  watching  be- 
side him.  He  shuddered  as  he  recalled  it;  for  the  moment 
the  thought  stole  on  him,  would  it  not  have  been  better  that 
his  life  should  have  ended  there?  The  richness  and  the  frailty 
of  his  nature  alike  had  needed  light  and  color,  and  the  sweet- 
ness of  delight,  and  the  vivid  hues  of  beauty  and  of  pleasureu 


446  CHANDOS. 

Now  that,  like  Adam,  he  had  long  toiled  alone  in  the  bleaV 
and  barren  eartli  of  his  exile,  like  Adam  he  might  have  gath- 
ered the  bitter  wisdom  of  far-reaching  knowledge;  but  also, 
like  Adam,  the  gates  of  Paradise  had  closed  on  him  forever. 
He  was  a  wanderer^  and  without  joy;  there  were  times,  as  he 
had  said  that  night,  when  he  wislied  to  God  that  it  had  been 
given  him  to  die  in  his  youth. 

As  he  passed  now  down  tlie  stairs,  the  black,  sweeping  folds 
of  a  woman's  dress  touched  him:  he  joaused  to  give  her  space. 
In  the  gleam  of  the  lamp-light  a  face,  still  beautiful,  though 
haggard  and  darkened,  was  turned  on  him:  it  was  the  face  of 
Beatrix  Lennox. 

She  started,  and  a  gentler,  better  look  shadowed  and  soft- 
ened her  features. 

"  Yo7i !" 

She  knew  him — knew  him  as  soon  as  her  eyes  lighted  on  him 
in  that  dusky  yellow  gloom — this  woman  who,  in  the  midst  of 
a  reckless,  sensuous,  unscrupulous,  world-defiant  life,  had 
borne  him  a  tenderness  silent  as  death,  pure  as  light.  His 
face  was  graven  on  her  heart — that  face  which  she  had  first 
known  in  all  the  splendor  and  all  the  radiance  of  its  earliest 
manhood — which  she  had  recognized  once  in  the  blackness  of 
the  stormy,  snow-veiled  winter  night — which  she  knew  now 
in  the  dignity  and  the  sadness  of  its  later  years. 

He  paused  a  moment,  surprised  and  uncertain.  All  that 
past  time  was  so  dim  to  him,  all  remembrance  of  her  had  been 
so  merged  in  the  misery  he  had  endured  on  the  night  of  their 
last  parting,  when  he  had  learned  that  the  one  he  then  loved 
had  forsaken  him,  and  had  been  so  swept  away  in  the  blank 
of  starvation  and  of  bodily  illness  which  had  succeeded  it,  that 
he  had  little  memory  of  all  he  had  owed  her  in  that  wintry 
midnight  when  she  had  found  him  sinking  into  the  sleep  of 
death.  It  was  confused,  and  it  made  indistinct  even  his 
knowledge  of  her  as  she  stood  beside  him  now,  after  the  pas- 
sage of  so  many  years.  Her  eyes,  once  so  victorious  in  their 
empire,  so  unsparing  in  their  sorcery,  dwelt  on  him  with  an 
extreme  desolation. 

"  Ah!  you  have  forgotten  me?  AVell  you  may:  even  Death 
forgets  me,  I  think.'' 

Her  voice,  so  liquid  and  so  silver-sweet,  stirred  his  memory 
as  the  features  in  their  change  could  not  do.  He  took  her 
hands  in  his. 

"  Forgotten?  Never.  Do  not  so  wrong  my  gratitude. 
Some  part  of  my  life  seems  a  blank  to  me;  but  that  life  lived 


CHANBOS.  44? 

in  me  at  all  was  owing  to  you.  And  now  that  we  meet,  how 
can  I  thank  you?     There  are  no  words  for  such  a  service. '^ 

She  smiled,  though  her  eyes  still  dwelt  on  him  with  that 
desolate  and  longing  look. 

"  Is  it  so  great  a  service  to  save  life?  Mercy  were  rather 
the  other  way.  Yet  perhaps  not  for  you;  you  have  made  a 
noble  use  of  adversity.  But  it  was  little  enough  /  did.  I 
would  have  served  you,  God  knows;  but  the  power  was  never 
mine." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  pang  at  his  heart.  All  the  com- 
panions of  that  Joyous  royalty,  in  which  Fortune  had  seemed 
but  the  slave  to  obey  his  wish  and  to  crown  his  desire,  were 
dead  or  lost,  forgotten  or  unknown  to  him,  now;  and  her  voice 
struck  chords  long  unsounded  and  better  left  in  peace — awoke 
memories  of  a  world  abandoned  forever,  of  a  youth  forever 
gone.  Those  long  nights  of  pleasure,  those  dazzling  eyes  of 
women,  those  chimes  of  laughter  without  a  care,  those  flower- 
smothered  Cleopatrau  revels,  those  hours  of  careless  joyance 
that  had  not  a  thought  of  the  morrow — how  far  away  they 
seemed!  He  stood  looking  down  on  her  in  the  somber  shadow 
of  the  wretched  staircase,  his  thoughts  rather  in  the  past  than 
with  her.  He  did  not  know  that  she  loved  him — he  had  never 
known  it — loved  him  so  that  she,  the  reckless  and  lawless 
Bohemian,  would  for  his  sake,  had  it  been  possible,  have  led 
the  noblest  life  that  ever  woman  led  on  earth — loved  him  so 
tliat,  through  that  purer  love  hating  herself,  she  would  no 
more,  in  the  days  of  her  beauty,  have  wooed  him  to  her  than 
she  would  have  slain  him,  no  more  have  offered  him  her  ten- 
derness than  she  would  have  offered  him  hemlock — loved  him 
too  well  ever  to  summon  him  amidst  her  lovers. 

*'  How  is  it  that  we  have  never  met?"  he  asked  her — 
*'  never  met  until  in  such  a  place  as  this  and  at  such  an 
hour?" 

She  smiled.  She  had  looked  on  his  face  many  and  many  a 
time,  unseen  herself;  she  had  suffered  for  him  in  his  bitter- 
ness, she  had  gloried  in  his  endurance,  though  she  had  never 
gone  nigh  him,  but  had  rather  withdrawn  herself  from  every 
chance  of  recognition. 

"  You  have  never  seen  me?  I  have  been  long  dead,  you 
know.  Women  die  when  their  beauty  dies.  Come  within:  I 
have  one  word  to  say  to  you." 

She  turned  into  a  chamber  somewhat  lower  on  the  staircase, 
poor,  dark,  chilly,  in  the  feeble  light  of  flickering  candles. 

"  You  live  here?" 

When  he  had  known  this  woman,  she  had  commanded  what 


448  JHANDOS. 

she  would  from  peers  and  princes,  who  had  been  only  too 
proud  to  be  allowed  the  honor  of  ruin  for  her  sake. 
_  She  flung  off  her  the  heavy  folds  of  her  cloak;  and,  as  the 
richer  hues  of  the  dress  beneath  were  dimly  caught  in  the 
faint  light,  there  was  something  still  of  the  old  regahty  which 
had  made  Beatrix  Lennox  the  fairest  name  and  the  haughtiest 
queen  in  the  whole  of  the  dauntless  army  of  the  Free  Com- 
panions. 

"No;  I  am  not  quite  so  bad  as  that  yet.  I  came  here  to- 
night to  see  one  who  is  dying  fast,  wjth  not  a  living  soul  to 
tend  him.^' 

"Ah!  you  belied  the  charity  of  your  heart,  then?  at  least 
you  know  the  mercy  of  human  pity  still,  as  you  knew  it  once 
for  me. " 

"Hush!  Charity?  Mine?  You  do  not  know  what  you 
say.  _  Is  repenting  of  a  millionth  part  of  a  torrent  of  evil — 
charity?  The  man  who  dies  there  was  my  victim.  Years  ago 
I  drew  him  on  till  he  fooled  away  everything  he  owned  for  my 
sake.  I  cared  no  more  for  him  than  for  the  sands  of  the  sea; 
but  it  amused  me  to  watch  how  far  his  folly  would  go.  He 
loved  his  wife;  I  made  him  hate  her.  He  had  ambition;  I 
made  him  scoff  at  it.  He  had  riches;  I  made  him  squander 
them  for  an  hour's  caprice  of  mine.  He  had  honors;  I  made 
him  trail  them  in  the  mud,  like  llaleigh's  cloak,  that  I  might 
set  my  foot  on  them.  Well,  then  I  flung  him  away  like  a 
faded  flower,  like  a  beryl  out  of  fashion;  and  I  find  him,  years 
after,  dying  in  want  and  shame.  Call  mine  charity?  Call 
me  a  murderess,  rather!" 

There  were  no  tears  in  her  eyes;  but  there  were  more  in- 
tense misery  and  remorse  in  the  calm  words  than  ever  tears 
yet  uttered. 

He  looked  on  her  with  infinite  compassion. 
"  /call  you  notliing  harsh;  you  were  at  least  my  savior." 
Her  beautiful,  dark,  wild  eyes  gazed  at  him  with  gratitude 
in  which  no  acceptance  of  the  forgiveness  of  herself  mingled. 

"  Ah,  Chandos,  I  am  heart-sick  of  the  world's  babble  about 
vowr  sex's  tempting.  It  is  we  who  tempt  you;  it  is  we  who 
blindfold  yoa—we  who  are  never  satisfied  till  we  have  won 
your  lives  to  break  them — we  who  curse  you  in  sin  and  in 
pleasure,_in  license  and  in  marriage — we  who,  if  we  see  you  at 
peace,  think  our  vanity  is  at  stake  till  we  drive  peace  away! 
The  moralists  rant  of  us  as  martyrs!  They  little  know  that 
our  mockery  of  love  destroys  a  thousandfold  more  lives  than 
it  has  ever  blessed.'' 
She  spoke  with  passionate  bitterness-     He  answered  uoth- 


CHANDOS.  449 

mg;  he  felt  the  truth  of  her  words  too  well;  and  yet  with  the 
thoughts  of  love  there  stole  on  him  one  fresh,  one  soft  memory 
— that  of  the  child  Castalia. 

Beatrix  Lennox  roused  herself  with  the  smile  which  even  in 
its  sadness  had  something  of  the  sorcery  that  nature  had  given 
her  and  that  death  alone  could  take  away. 

"  Forgive  me!  It  was  not  to  speak  of  these  tilings  that  I 
brought  you  here.  It  was  but  to  ask  you,  have  you  found  yet 
who  is  your  worst  foe?" 

"  Yes;  I  was  my  own." 

"  Well,  you  were — because  you  loved  others  better  than  you 
loved  yourself.  But  that  is  not  my  meaning.  Long  ago,  did 
you  ever  receive  an  anonymous  letter  that  warned  you  against 
John  Trevenna?" 

His  face  darkened  at  the  name.  He  paused,  silent  for  a 
moment.     She  gave  him  no  time  to  reply. 

"  If  you  did,  I  wrote  it.^' 

"  Your'' 

He  looked  at  her  in  surprise. 

''I!  I  dared  not  warn  you  more  openly;  I  was  in  his 
power,  as  he  had  so  many  in  his  power.  I  knew  that  he  hated 
you  terribly,  bitterly.  There  was  something  between  you  he 
never  pardoned.  Why  was  it?  What  wrong  had  you  ever 
done  him?" 

"  None:  I  only  served  him." 

"Ah!  then  it  was  that  he  could  not  forgive!  I  knew  it  as 
women  know  many  things  men  never  dream  that  they  even 
divine.  I  knew  it  by  a  thousand  slight  signs,  a  thousand 
half-betrayals,  which  escaped  his  caution  and  your  notice,  but 
which  told  his  secret  to  me.  As  for  its  root,  I  knew  nothing. 
It  was  jealousy;  but  whether  simply  of  your  social  superiori- 
ties, or  wiiether  complicated  by  more  personal  antagonism,  I 
can  not  tell.  I  used  to  fancy  that  some  woman  might  be  the 
cause  of  the  envy.  Where  tares  grow  to  choke  the  wheat,  it 
is  always  our  hands  that  sow  them!" 

"  A  woman?"  He  thought  of  the  words  that,  long  years 
before,  had  been  s2)oken  by  the  old  man  whom  his  adversity 
had  slain.  "  There  was  no  love-feud  between  us;  and  I  doubc 
if  love  ever  touched  him:  he  was  not  one  to  harbor  it." 

"  An  egotist  can  always  love  well  enough  to  deny  what  he 
loves  to  another.  Be  the  cause  what  it  will,  he  hated  you — 
hates  still,  I  have  no  doubt,  though  the  world  has  found  out 
an  idol  and  a  celebrity  in  him.  Ah,  Heaven!  what  a  travoety 
of  all  justice  is  that  man's  success!" 

"  It  is  the  due  of  his  intellect." 


450  CHANDOS. 

It  was  uot  in  him  to  disparage  the  merits  or  the  attainmentG 
of  his  foe.  She  looked  at  him  with  a  wonder  in  which  min- 
gled something  of  impatience,  more  of  veneration. 

"  Ah,  Chandos,  how  can  the  world  understand  you?  You 
speak  well  of  your  worst  traitor!" 

"  I  but  give  him  the  due  of  his  abihties:  you  would  not, 
surely,  have  me  do  less?" 

"  But  you  know  he  is  your  vilest  enemy." 

"  Yes;  he  has  declared  himself  so." 

"  And  still  you  give  him  generous  words?" 

"  Words?  What  are  words?  If  it  ever  came  to  deeds,  I 
might  prove  little  better  than  he  in  brute  vengeance." 

The  animal  lust,  the  evil  leaven,  which  lie  in  the  loftiest 
and  the  purest  forms  of  human  nature,  ready  to  rouse  and 
steep  themselves  in  Cain's  reveuge,  were  on  him  as  he  spoke. 
He  knew  how  this  man's  outrage  had  power  to  move  him;  he 
knew  how  if  vengeance  ever  came  into  his  hand  he  would  have 
passion  in  its  using  beside  which  all  the  tolerance  and  self- 
knowledge  gathered  from  suffering  would  break  hke  reeds, 
would  crumble  as  ashes. 

She  watched  him  still  with  that  same  olended  wonder  and 
reverence  in  her  aching  eyes. 

"  Chandos,  for  less  than  this  Iscariot's  crime  men  have 
cursed  their  foes  liy'mg  and  dying;  and  you — you  still  are  just 
to  him!" 

A  look  that  had  for  the  moment  the  old  proud  disdain  of  his 
earlier  years  passed  over  his  features,  even  while  his  teeth  set 
and  his  hand  clinched. 

"  Because  the  man  is  vile,  would  you  have  me  sink  so  low 
myself  as  to  deny  him  his  meed  of  intellect,  and  decry  his  suc- 
cess, like  a  mortified  woman  who  depreciates  her  rival?  He 
is  famous,  and  his  intellect  deserves  his  fame.  But  think  me 
none  the  better  that  I  say  so.  There  are  times  when  I  could 
find  it  in  me,  if  a  reckoning  came  between  us,  to  wring  hfe 
out  of  him  as  I  might  wring  it  out  of  any  snake  that  poisoned 
me." 

There  was  the  vibration  of  intense  passion  in  the  words, 
though  they  were  low-spoken.  As  the  evil  influence  of  Tre- 
venna  had  betrayed  his  youth  and  drawn  his  manhood  to  its 
ruin,  so  it  entered  him  now  and  filled  him  with  the  virus  of 
brute  longing,  and  shook  to  their  roots  the  proud  patience  and 
the  pain-taught  self-discipline  which  he  had  learned  hi  the 
j-ears  o£  his  exile.  There  were  times  when,  remembering  the 
friendship  and  the  gifts  he  had  lavished  on  this  man,  and  re- 
membering the  taunts,  the  mockery,  the  hatred,  the  injury 


CHANDOS.  451 

with  which  he  had  in  tnrn  been  requited,  he  could  have  gone 
back  to  the  old  barbaric  weapons,  and  dealt  with  the  traitor 
2iand  to  hand,  blow  for  blow. 

The  venom  of  envy  could  never  eater  hirn;  but  he  would 
have  been  more  than  human  if,  through  these  mauy  years  of 
loss,  and  weariness,  and  divorce  from  all  he  had  once  loved 
and  owned,  the  triumphant  passage  of  the  man  who  would  but 
for  his  aid  have  been  obscured  in  a  debtor's  prison,  the  plaudits 
that  the  world  bestowed  on  a  man  whom  he  knew  base  as  any 
assassin  who  slew  what  had  saved  and  succored  him,  had  not 
possessed  an  exceeding  bitterness  for  him — had  not  sickened 
him  oftentimes  of  all  hope  or  belief  in  Justice,  earthly  or 
divine.  Once  Trevenna  had  hoped  to  wreck  his  genius  as  well 
as  his  peace,  his  intellect  as  well  as  his  fortune,  his  soul  as 
well  as  his  beauty  and  his  heritage.  Once  Trevenna  had  loved 
to  think  that  his  well-planned  murder  would  kill  in  its  victim 
all  higher  instincts,  all  likeness  of  honor,  and  all  purity  of 
conscience:  it  was  possible  that,  even  at  the  end,  his  wish 
might  find  fruition — that,  under  the  weight  of  accumulated 
wrongs,  long-chained  jiassions  and  long-strained  endurance 
might  give  way  and  find  their  fall  in  dealing  retribution, 
which,  just  in  its  chastisement,  would  still  be  the  forbidden 
justice  of  some  involuntary  and  avenging  crime.  Some 
thought  of  this  passed  over  the  mind  of  the  world-worn  and 
reckless  Bohemian  who  gazed  at  him.  She  stooped  forward 
eagerly,  and,  in  the  yellow  shadows,  the  softened  emotion  that 
was  upon  it  lent  the  fairness  of  other  years  to  her  face. 

*'  Chandos,  whatever  he  be,  ho  is  beneath  you.  An  evil  im- 
pulse wrung  from  you  is  more  than  all  his  baseness  is  worth. 
He  has  robbed  you,  I  believe,  of  much;  but  his  worst  robbery 
will  be  if  ever  he  wrenches  from  you  your  better,  your  nobler 
nature." 

An  impatient  sigh  escaped  him. 

"  That  is  to  speak  idly.  I  am  no  better  than  other  men; 
and  I  am  no  demi-god,  to  rise  above  all  natural  passions  and 
gee  evil  triumph  unmoved.  It  were  a  poor,  paltry  vanity  to 
point  at  his  successes  and  tell  men  they  were  unjust  because 
the  winner  of  them  was  my  foe.  He  is  famous;  let  them 
make  him  so.  But  not  the  less,  if  ever  the  power  of  chastise- 
ment come  into  my  hands,  shall  I  liold  the  widest  as  his  due. 
Robbed  me,  you  say?  Yes,  I  believe  now  that  half  my  ruin 
was  robbery,  or  little  better;  but  the  theft  was  wisely  to  wind- 
ward of  the  law.  If  he  thieved  from  me,  there  was  no  proof 
of  it." 

She  shook  her  head. 


452  CHANDOS. 

"  He  was  too  keen,  too  prudent,  too  wise.  Devour  your 
substance  I  know  that  he  did;  but  he  would  have  ever  been 
mindful  of  Bible  precedent,  and  would  only  have  taken  your 
inheritance  by  persuading  you  to  disinherit  yourself  for  some 
pottage  of  pleasure  or  of  indolence.  Men  who  break  laws  are, 
at  their  best,  but  half  knave,  half  fool:  he  is  too  able  to  be 
numbered  among  them.^^ 

"  Doubtless!  the  world's  greatest  criminals  are  those  who 
never  stand  in  a  dock,''  he  answered  her,  as  his  mind  went 
back  to  the  story  of  the  blind  Hebrew.  *'  There  is  a  man 
here,  a  Jew,  whose  history  tells  that  he  rejects  all  assistance, 
almost  all  sympathy;  but  he  merits  both.  Will  you  see  him, 
if  it  be  possible?" 

"  Surely — for  you.  A  blind  Jew?  I  have  noticed  him  as  I 
passed;  but  I  am  no  fit  missionary  of  consolation  to  any  living 
thing!     /,  Beatrix  Lennox!" 

"  Well,  you,"  he  said,  gently — "  you  are  here  on  an  errand 
of  mercy  to-night." 

She  flashed  on  him  a  glance  almost  fierce,  had  it  not  been 
so  melancholy, 

"  Grand'  cliose  !  I  am  here  because  one  whom  I  murdered 
lies  dying,  without  a  creature  to  tend  his  death-bed.  A  noble 
mission,  truly!  Aii,  Chandos,  I  am  not  one  of  those  miser- 
able cravens  who,  having  given  all  the  flower  of  their  years  to 
the  working  of  evil,  buy  a  cheap  virtue  back  by  insulting  a 
God  they  disbelieved  in  over  their  revels  with  the  offer  of  tiie 
few  tame,  barren,  untempted  years  they  have  left  them!  That 
is  a  wretched  travesty,  a  terrible  blasphemy:  do  not  think  I 
stoop  to  it.  But  yet  you — you  who  know  human  nature  so 
well,  and  are  so  gentle  to  it,  though  it  basely  abandoned  you 
— you,  who  have  the  heart  of  a  poet  and  the  tolerance  of  a 
philosopher — will  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that  there  are 
times  when  I  hate  myself  more  utterly  than  any  ever  hated 
me,  justly  though  they  had  cause?  You  will  know  that  there 
may  be  so  vast  an  evil  in  us  and  yet  that  there  may  linger 
some  conscience:"  Her  words  swept  on,  without  waiting  for 
answer.  "  You  never  knew  my  story.  None  will  ever  know 
it — as  it  was.  I  was  sold  into  marriage,  almost  in  childiiood, 
as  slave-girls  are  sold  to  a  harem.  Well,  if  I  hated  my  bond- 
age as  they  hate  theirs,  where  was  the  wonder?  whose  was  the 
sin?  But  that  matters  nothing.  Those  who  err  can  always 
find  apology  of  their  error;  I  will  be  no  such  coward.  Still, 
it  was  through  this  that  John  Trevenna  had  his  liold  on  me. 
My  husband  " — her  dark,  imperial  face  still  flushed  and  the 
long  hazel  eyes  still  flashed  at  the  words — "  held  his  wife'j 


CHANDOS.  453 

charms  only  as  his  proiDerty,  to  turn  to  such  account  as  he 
would.  He  was  very  poor,  very  extravagant.  He  found  that 
rich  men,  fashionable  men,  admired  me,  gave  horses  and  car- 
riages, and  venison,  and  game,  and  dinners,  and  invitations 
to  great  houses,  and  anything  and  everything,  and  would  play 
on  in  our  drawing-rooms  at  whist  and  billiards  till  the  stakes 
and  the  bets  rose  to  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  You 
can  guess  the  rest.  I  was  his  decoy-bird.  What  a  school  of 
shamelessness  for  a  girl  not  twenty!  How  I  loathed  it!  how  I 
loathed  it! — only  the  more  because  it  was  glossed  over  with 
fashion.  Well,  Trevenna  had  immense  sway  over  Colonel 
Lennox;  he  had  it  over  every  one,  when  he  cared  to  attain  it. 
He  saw  niy  hatred  of  the  part  I  was  driven  to  play;  he  con- 
trived to  lighten  it.  He  never  hinted  any  love;  it  served  to 
give  me  confidence  in  him;  he  was  the  only  man  who  never 
spoke  of  it  to  me,  never  so  much  as  whispered  a  thought  of  it. 
He  earned  my  gratitude  by  freeing  me  from  my  husband's  per- 
secution; but  he  made  me  understand  that,  in  return,  I  must 
serve  him  by  acquainting  him  with  all  the  embarrassments, 
all  the  weaknesses,  of  the  innumerable  men  about  me.  I  was 
glad  to  comply:  the  terms  seemed  light,  and,  mind  you,  they 
were  only  tacitly  offered.  I  bought  my  freedom  by  being  his 
tool.  I  did  not  know  I  did  harm  then:  I  have  believed, 
since,  that  I  did  more  than  when  I  allured  them  by  my  coquet- 
ries that  my  husband  might  win  their  gold  at  pool  or  at  cards. 
That  was  how  I  came  into  Trevenna's  power;  that  was  why  I 
dared  not  write  more  openly  to  you  of  a  hatred  I  had  fath- 
omed, though  he  had  never  uttered  it.  Forgive  me,  Chandos, 
if  you  can,  for  so  much  weakness,  so  much  selfishness!" 

He  had  listened,  absorbed  in  the  history  she  told,  in  the 
dark  and  cruel  pressure  which  had  been  upon  one  whom  the 
world  had  held  so  heartless,  so  reckless,  so  wayward,  so  daz- 
iling  a  llonne :  he  started  at  the  last  words  like  one  whose 
dream  is  broken. 

"  Forgive!  I  have  nothing  to  forgive,     I  had  no  claim  that' 
you  should  care  for  my  friends  or  my  foes.     And  this  was  the 
way  he  gained  his  power!     My  God!  is  it  possible — " 

He  di'l  not  end  his  words;  the  thought  swept  past  him,  ex- 
travagant and  vague,  were  the  task-master  of  Beatrix  Lennox 
and  the  task-master  of  the  Castilian  Jew  one  and  the  same? 
She  looked  uji;  she  saw  his  face  darken;  she  heard  his  breath 
catch  as,  for  the  first  time,  the  possibility  that  his  enemy  was 
the  tyrant  whose  hand  had  lain  so  heavy  on  the  Hebrew  flashed 
on  him. 

*'Whati8itf" 


454  CHANDOS. 

**  Your  words  have  brought  a  strange  fancy  to  me;  that  il 
bU.     a  groundless  one,  perhaps,  yet  one  I  must  follow/' 

She  rose;  and  her  deep,  sad  eyes  dwelt  on  him  with  a  love 
that  she  had  never  let  him  read— she  in  whose  hands  love  had 
been  but  a  net  and  a  snare. 

"  Follow  it,  then,  and  God-speed  you!  It  is  of  your  enemy, 
of  my  bond-master?" 

He  bent  his  head  in  silence.  Thoughts  had  rushed  in  on 
him  with  so  sudden  and  so  passionate  a  force  that  to  frame 
them  to  words  was  impossible;  they  were  baseless  and  sliape- 
less  as  a  dream,  but  they  came  with  an  irresistible  might  of 
conviction.  He  waited  a  moment,  with  the  mechanical  in- 
stinct of  courtesy. 

"  Can  I  not  aid  you?  The  dying  man  whom  you  spoke  of, 
can  I  do  nothing  for  him?" 

She  gave  a  gesture  of  dissent,  almost  savage— if  the  softness 
of  her  inalienable  grace  could  have  ever  let  her  be  so. 

"  Why  always  think  of  others  instead  of  yourself?  You 
had  never  been  ruined  but  for  that  sublime  folly!  No;  you 
can  do  nothing  for  him.  He  will  be  dead  by  the  dawn.  I 
killed  him.  I  never  cared  for  him;  but  I  do  care  that  you 
should  not  look  on  my  work.  It  has  been  thoroughly  done: 
no  woman  ever  wrecks  byhalves.^' 

There  was  in  the  half  ironic,  half  scornful  calmness  of  th© 
•words  a  grief  deeper  than  lies  in  any  abandonment  o£  sorrow. 
He  stooped  over  her  an  instant,  touched,  and  forgetting  his 
own  thoughts  in  hers. 

"  I  do  not  say,  Feel  no  remorse;  for  that  were  to  say,  Deny 
the  truest  of  your  instincts.  But  you  were  cruelly  wronged, 
cruelly  driven.  There  is  much  nobility  still,  where  so  much 
tenderness  hngers.     Farewell:  we  shall  meet  again?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  that  long,  lingering  look  that  had 
so  hopeless  a  melancholy. 

"Ah!  I  do  not  know.  Heath  will  be  here  to-night;  perhaps 
he  will  be  gentle  and  generous  for  once,  and  take  me  with 
him— at  least,  if  his  promised  sleep  have  no  awakening. 
There  is  the  fear— the  old  Hamlet-fear,  never  set  at  rest  eithef 
way!'* 

He  left  her;  and  she  leaned  awhile  against  the  bare  table, 
her  hands  clinched  in  the  still  rich  masses  of  her  hair,  her  lip3 
pressed  in  a  close  weary  line,  her  eyes  filling  slowly  with  tears, 

''  Ah!"  she  mused,  in  the  aching  of  her  heart,  "  have  nine- 
tenths  of  us  ever  any  real  chance  to  be  the  best  we  might? 
If  I  had  lived  for  him,  if  he  had  ever  loved  me,  or  one  like 
him,   no  woman  would    have   been    truer,   gentler,   purer. 


CHANDOS.  455 

stronger  to  serve  him,  or  more  utterly  under  his  law  and  at 
his  feet,  than  I!'' 

He  left  her,  and  went  again  upward  to  the  Hebrew's  cham- 
ber. A  strange  instinct  of  vengeance,  a  sudden  impulse  of 
belief,  urged  him  on.  Though  no  hint  had  been  dropped 
that  the  Jew's  tyrant  was  the  enemy  of  his  own  life,  a  convic- 
tion strong  as  knowledge  had  centered  in  him  that  the  man 
spoken  of  was  John  Treveuna.  He  thrust  the  door  open 
hurriedly,  and  entered;  the  little  lamp  still  burned  dully  there, 
but  the  blind  Israelite  and  the  dog  were  both  gone.  Standing 
alone  in  the  desolation  of  the  narrow  chamber,  he  could  almost 
have  believed  that  the  tale  he  had  heard  had  been  a  dream  of 
the  night,  and  the  antique  form  of  the  old  man  but  one  of  its 
sleep-born  phantoms.  There  had  passed  but  the  space  which 
he  had  spent  with  Beatrix  Lennox  since  he  had  been  told  the 
recital:  yet  either  answer  was  purposely  denied  to  his  ques- 
tions, or  the  refuge  the  Jew  had  sought  amidst  the  people  of 
his  nation  was  too  secret  to  be  unearthed,  for  no  search  and 
no  inquiry  brought  a  trace  of  him;  lie  was  lost,  with  the  vague 
outline  of  his  history  left  unfilled,  lost  in  the  wide  wilderness 
of  a  large  city's  nameless  jioverty.  With  its  memory  upon 
him,  Chandos  went  out  into  the  gray,  subdued  light  of  the 
now-breaking  dawn;  the  thoughts  which  had  moved  him  had 
stirred  depths  which  time  had  long  sealed.  For  many  years 
he  had  striven  to  put  from  him  the  remembrance  alike  of  his 
wrongs  and  of  his  losses;  he  had  believed  the  first  to  be  be- 
yond avenging,  as  the  latter  were  beyond  redemption;  he  had 
striven  to  live  only  the  impersonal  life  of  the  thinker,  of  the 
scholar,  to  leave  behind  him  alike  the  unnerving  weight  of  re- 
gret and  the  baneful  indulgence  of  a  vain  suspicion.  But 
here  the  things  of  those  dead  days  had  risen  and  forced  them- 
selves on  him;  to  his  mind  came  what  until  then  had  not 
touched  him— the  belief  that  his  foe  had  dealt  liim  wider 
treachery  than  the  mere  treachery  of  friendship — that  Tre- 
venna  had  done  more  tium  leave  him  unwarned  in  a  dangerous 
downward  course,  but  had  robbed  him  and  trepanned  him 
under  the  smooth  surface  of  fair  and  honest  service.  The 
utter  extravagance  and  heedlessness  of  his  joyous  reign  had 
left  him  no  title  to  accuse  another  of  causing  any  share  of  the 
destruction  which  followed  on  it;  and  the  organization  of  his 
mind  was  one  to  which  such  an  accusation  could  but  very 
slowly,  and  only  on  sheer  certainty,  s'.iggest  itself.  Yet  now, 
looking  bacikward  to  innumerable  memories,  he  believed  that, 
in  the  jiale  of  the  law,  his  traitor  had  been  as  guilty  of  em- 
bezzlement as  any  within  the  law's  arraignment;  he  believed 


456  CHANDOS. 

that  liis  antagouist  had  tempted,  blinded,  robbed,  and  betrayed 
him  on  a  set  and  merciless  scheme. 

RecaUiug  the  points  of  the  Spanish  Jew's  relation,  slight 
and  nameless  as  the  recital  had  been  in  much,  something  that 
was  near  the  actual  truth  came  before  his  thoughts.  He  re- 
membered how  heavily  the  claims  of  a  money-lender's  house 
had  pressed  on  him  for  obligations  in  his  own  name,  and  for 
those  where  his  name  had  been  lent  to  others.  If  his  foe  and 
the  Hebrew's  tyrant  were  one,  how  vast  a  net-work  of  intrigue 
and  fraud  might  there  not  have  been  wound  about  him !  It 
was  but  imagination,  it  was  but  analogy  and  possibihty,  that 
suggested  themselves  vaguely  to  him:  yet  they  fastened  there, 
and  an  instinct  for  the  "  wild  justice  "  of  revenge  woke  with 
it,  passionate  and  unsparing.  To  fling  his  foe  down  ai]d  hold 
him  in  a  death-gripe,  as  the  hound  pulls  down  the  boar,  was 
a  longing  as  intense  upon  him  in  its  dominion  as  it  was  on 
David  of  Israel  when  the  treachery  of  men  5,nd  the  triumph  of 
evil-doers  broke  asunder  his  faith  and  wrung  the  fire  of  impre- 
cation from  his  lips. 

As  he  looked  back  on  all  he  had  suffered,  all  he  had  lost, 
all  he  had  seen  die  out  from  him  forever,  and  all  that  forever 
had  forsaken  him,  he  felt  the  black  blood  of  the  old  murder- 
ous instinct  latent  in  all  human  hearts  rise  and  burn  in  him: 
utterly  foreign  to  his  nature,  once  grafted,  it  took  the  deadlier 
hold. 

"  Oh,  God!"  he  said,  half  aloud,  in  his  clinched  teeth,  as  he 
passed  the  entrance  of  the  miserable  house,  ''  shall  his  crimes 
nevBi^  find  him  out?" 

These  crimes  had  given  his  betrayer  a  long  immunity;  Ihey 
had  given  him  a  life-time  of  success;  they  had  given  him 
riches  and  favor  and  the  fruition  of  ripe  ambitions;  they  had 
given  him  the  desire  of  his  heart  and  the  laurels  of  the  world: 
— would  the  time  ever  come  when  they  should  be  quoted 
against  him  and  strip  him  bare  in  the  sight  of  the  people? 
The  bitterness  of  unbelief,  the  weariness  of  desolation,  fell  on 
Chandos  as  the  doubt  pursued  him.  He  had  cleaved  to  honor 
for  its  own  sake,  and  had  loved  and  served  men,  asking  no 
recompense;  and  he  remained  without  reward.  Pursuing 
fraud,  and  tyranny,  and  the  wisdom  of  self-love,  and  the 
tortuous  routes  of  unscrupulous  sagacity,  his  enemy  prospered 
in  the  sight  of  the  world,  and  put  his  hand  to  nothing  that 
ever  failed  him.  There  was  a  pitiless,  cold,  mocking  sjircasm 
in  the  contrast,  which  left  the  problem  of  human  existence 
dark  as  night  in  its  mystery,  which  shook  and  loosened  the 


CHANDOS.  467 

one  sheet-anchor  of  his  life — his  loyalty  to  truth  for  truth's 
own  sake. 

The  heart-sickness  of  Pilate's  doubt  was  on  him;  and  he 
asked  in  his  soul,  "  Wiiat  is  truth?" 

As  he  passed  out  into  the  narrow-arched  doorway,  some 
young  revelers  reeled  past  him — handsome,  dissolute,  titled 
youths,  who  had  been  flinging  themselves  in  the  air  in  the  mad 
dances  till  the  dawn,  at  a  ball  of  the  people,  dressed  as 
Pierrots  and  Arlequins.  They  were  going  now  to  their  wait- 
ing carriages,  talking  and  laughing,  while  the  sound  of  their 
voices  echoed  through  the  stillness  of  the  breaking  day  in  dis- 
jointed sentences. 

*'  Castalia!  Beau  nom  !  Selling  lilies  with  a  face  like  a 
Titian: — how  poetic!" 

"  Very.  But  somebody,  apparently,  had  left  her  to  the 
very  dull  prose  of  wanting  her  bread — a  common  colophon  to 
our  idyls!" 

"  VVandering  with  a  few  flowers;  and  Villeroy  could  neither 
tempt  her  nor  trap  her!  He  must  have  been  very  Je/'e  .^  Or 
she—" 

"  A  Pythoness.  He  is  terribly  sore  on  the  subject.  Par- 
dieu!    I  wish  we  had  her  here!      AVomen  grow  dreadfully 

ugly." 

They  had  passed,  almost  ere  the  sense  of  the  words  had 
reached  his  ear  and  ])ierced  the  depth  of  his  thoughts:  invol- 
untarily he  paused  where  he  stood  in  the  entrance. 

"  Castalia!" 

He  murmured  the  name  with  a  pang;  the  indefinite  words 
he  had  heard  suggested  so  terrible  a  fate  for  her;  and  his  heart 
went  out  to  her  in  an  infinite  tenderness — that  beautiful  child, 
brilliant  as  any  passion-flower,  desolate  as  any  stricken  fawn! 

*' Who  is  she?" 

Beatrix  Lennox,  standing  unseen  near  him,  hoard  alike  the 
revelers'  words  and  his  echo  of  the  name. 

He  started  and  turned  to  her. 

"She  whom  they  spoke  of?  I  do  not  know;  at  least,  J 
hope  to  Heaven  I  do  not!" 

"  But  the  one  who  is  in  your  thoughts?" 

She,  who  loved  him,  had  caught  the  softness  of  his  voico 
and  its  eager  dread  as  he  had  repeated  the  name  that  had  sud- 
denly floated  to  his  car  in  the  depths  of  Paris.  Ho  paused  a 
moment;  then  he  answered  her: 

*'  You  have  a  woman's  heart;  if  it  can  feel  pity,  know  it 
for  her.  She  is  nameless,  motherless,  friendless;  and  I  could 
only — as  a  harsh  mercy,  yet  the  best  left  to  me— leave  her." 


458  CHANDOS. 

Her  face  grew  paler;  her  lips  set  slightly. 

"  You  loved  her,  Chandos?" 

An  impatient  sigh  escaped  him. 

"  No  I  at  least  those  follies  are  dead  with  my  youth.  If  we 
had  met  earlier — " 

Her  eyes  dwelt  on  him  with  a  passionate  sadness. 

"  Love  is  not  dead  in  you;  it  will  revive/'  she  said,  simply. 
"Tell  me  of  her.'' 

*'  There  is  nothing  to  tell.  Her  parentage  is  unknown;  she 
lives  below  Valombrosa,  and  has  but  this  one  name — Castalia. 
She  will  have  the  beauty  and  the  genius  of  a  Corinne;  and  she 
lies  under  the  ban  of  illegitimacy,  with  no  haven  except  a  con- 
vent." 

"  But  if  she  be  the  one  of  whom  those  youths  spoke?  The 
name  is  rare." 

He  stayed  her  with  a  gesture. 

"Hush!  do  not  hint  it!  If  harm  reach  her,  I  shall  feel 
myself  guilty  of  her  fate." 

Her  voice  sunk  very  low. 

"  What,  then?  you  only  forsook  her  when  you  had  wearied 
of  her?" 

"  No:  you  mistake  me.  No  man  could  weary  of  that  ex- 
quisite life;  and  it  is  as  soilless  as  it  is  fair.  I  meant  but 
this:  I  believe  her  young  heart  was  mine,  though  no  love- 
words  passed  between  us;  and  I  have  doubted  sometimes  if  my 
tardy  mercy  were  not  a  cokl  and  brutal  cruelty.  Because 
passion  has  no  place  in  my  own  life,  I  forgot  that  regret  could 
have  no  place  in  hers." 

He  spoke  gravely,  and  his  memory  wandered  from  his  list- 
ener away  to  that  summer  eve  when  some  touch  of  the  old 
Boft  folly  had  come  back  on  him  as  his  lips  had  met  Castalia's 
• — away  to  the  hours  when  the  lustrous  eloquence  of  her  beam- 
ing eyes  had  reflected  his  thoughts,  almost  ere  they  had  been 
uttered,  in  that  pure  and  perfect  symijathy  without  which  love 
is  but  a  toy  of  the  senses,  a  plaything  of  the  passions. 

Beatrix  Lennox  looked  at  him  long  in  silence. 

"  She  is  dear  to  your"  she  said,  at  length. 

He  smiled,  very  wearily. 

"  If  I  let  her  be  so,  it  would  be  the  sure  signal  for  her  loss 
to  me. " 

He  had  lost  all  that  he  had  ever  cherished.  Then,  bending 
his  head  to  her  in  farewell,  he  went  out  into  the  dawn  alone. 

Beatrix  Lennox  stood  in  the  dark  and  narrow  entrance, 
M^atching  him  as  he  passed  away  in  the  twilight  of  the  Sawn, 
through  which  the  yellow  flicker  of  the  street-lights  was  burn- 


CHANDOS.  459 

fng  dully.  Her  black  robes  fell  about  her  like  the  laces  of 
Spanish  women;  her  face  was  very  pale,  for  there  was  no 
bloom  of  art  on  its  cheeks  to-night,  and  her  large  eyes  were 
suffused  with  tears  over  the  darkness  of  their  hazel  gleam. 
There  was  beauty  still  in  her — the  beauty  of  an  autumn  even- 
ing, that  has  the  faded  sadness  of  dead  hopes  and  the  tempest- 
clouds  of  past  storms  on  its  pale  sunless  skies  and  on  the  red 
fire  of  its  fallen  leaves. 

"  He  loves  her,  or  he  will  love,"  she  murmured,  in  her 
solitude.  "  I  will  seek  out  this  child,  and  see  if  she  be  worthy 
of  him.  Ah!  no  woman  will  be  that!  A  great  man's  life 
lies  higher  than  owr  love,  loftier  than  our  reach. " 

******* 

A  few  hours  later,  in  the  writing-cabinet  of  her  Eoman 
villa  a  famous  diplomatist  sat — one  who  wove  her  fine  nets 
around  all  the  body-politic  of  the  continent,  who  schemed  far 
away  with  Eastern  questions  and  AVestern  complications,  who 
had  her  hand  in  Austria,  her  eyes  on  Syria,  her  whisper  in  the 
Vatican,  her  scepter  in  the  Tulleries,  her  allies  among  the 
Mouslgnorl,  her  keys  to  all  the  bureccKx  secrets,  her  subtle, 
vivacious,  deleterious,  dangerous  power  everywhere. 

She  was  a  terrible  power  to  her  foes,  a  priceless  jDOwer  to  her 
party.  Those  brilliant  falcon  eyes  would  pierce  what  a  pha- 
lanx of  ministers  could  not  overcome;  that  unrivaled  silver 
wit  could  consummate  what  conferences  and  coalitions  failed 
to  compass;  that  magical  feminine  subtlety  could  dupe,  and 
mask,  and  net,  and  seduce,  and  wind,  and  unravel,  and  give 
a  poison-drop  of  treachery  in  a  crystal-clear  sweetmeat  of 
frankness  and  compliment,  and  join  with  both  sides  at  once, 
and  glide  unharmed  away,  compromised  with  neither,  as  no 
male  state-craft  ever  yet  could  do.  The  only  mistake  she 
made  was  that  she  thought  the  growth  of  the  nations  was  to 
bo  pruned  by  an  enameled  paper-knife,  and  the  peoples  that 
were  struggling  for  liberty,  as  drowning  men  for  air,  were  to 
bo  bound  helpless  by  the  strings  of  Foreign  Portfolios.  But 
the  error  was  not  only  hers;  male  state-craft  has  made  it  for 
ages. 

Now  it  was  of  an  idle  thing  she  was  speaking.  One  of  her 
attendants  stood  before  her,  a  slight,  pale,  velvet-voiced  Greek, 
long  in  her  service,  and  skilled  in  many  tongues  and  many 
ways.  He  was  reciting,  with  his  finger  on  a  little  note-book, 
the  heads  of  some  trilling  researches— very  trifling  he  thought 
them,  he  who  was  accustomed  to  be  a  great  lady's  political 
Vioiichard. 

"  Still  wandering;  close  on  Venetiaj  will  soon  want  food; 


460  CHANDOS. 

takes  no  alms;  let  Yalombrosa  two  months  ago;  is  known 
only  b}^  the  name  of  Castalia;  parentage  unknown;  reared  b^ 
chariiy  of  the  Church;  supposed  by  the  peasants  to  have  fled 
to  a  stranger  who  spent  the  spring  tliere  in  a  villegiatnra. 
That  is  all,  madame/' 

She  listened,  then  beat  her  jeweled  fingers  a  little  impa- 
tiently. 

"  That  is  not  like  your  training — to  bring  me  an  unfinished 
sketch. '^ 

*'  There  is  nothing  to  be  learned,  madame/' 

The  amused  scorn  of  his  mistress's  eyes  flashed  lightly  over 
him. 

"  If  a  thing  is  on  the  surface,  a  blind  man  can  feel  it.  Go; 
and  tell  me  when  you  come  back  both  the  name  of  thiii 
stranger  and  the  name  of  her  mother.'* 

"  It  is  impossible,  madame,'" 

She  gave  a  sign  of  her  hand  in  dismissal. 

"  You  must  make  impossibilities  possible,  if  you  remain 
with  me. " 

The  voice  was  perfectly  gentle,  but  inflexible.  Her  servant 
bowed,  and  withdrew. 

"  She  is  belle  a  faire  ])eiir.  I  will  know  what  she  is  to  him,'* 
murmured  Heloise  de  la  Vivarol. 

The  fair  politician  had  not  forgotten  her  oath. 

Two  weeks  later,  the  Greek,  who  dared  not  reappear  with  his 
mission  unaccomplished,  sent  his  mistress,  with  profound 
apology  for  continued  failure,  a  trifle  that,  by  infinite  patience 
and  much  difficulty,  had  been  procured,  with  penitent  con- 
fession of  its  theft,  from  a  contadina  of  Fontane  Amorose — a 
trifle  that  had  been  taken  from  the  dead,  and  secreted  rather 
from  superstitious  belief  in  its  holy  power  than  from  its  value. 
It  was  a  little,  worn,  thin,  silver  relic-case:  on  it  was  feebly 
scratched,  by  some  unskillful  hand,  a  name — ''  Valeria  Lulli.'* 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

**  RECORD   ONE  LOST  SOUL  MORE. " 

In  his  atelier,  early  in  the  next  day,  an  artist  stood  paint- 
ing. His  studio  looked  on  part  of  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau. 
The  garden  was  very  tranquil  below;  and  the  light  within 
shone  on  casts,  antiques,  b'-onzes,  old  armor,  old  cabinets,  and 
half-completed  sketches,  all  an  artist's  picturesque  lumber. 
He  had  a  fair  fame,  and,  though  not  rich,  could  live  in  ease. 
He  did  not  care  for  the  gay  Bohemianism  of  his  brethren;  he 


CHANDOS.  461 

had  never  done  so.  A  sensitive,  imaginative  man — poet  as 
well  as  painter — of  vivid  feeling  and  secluded  habits,  he  pre- 
ferred solitude,  and  made  companions  of  his  own  creatures. 
He  stood  before  one  now,  lovingly  touching  and  retouching  it 
— a  man  with  Southern  blood  in  every  line  of  his  liniby  and 
his  features,  with  a  head  like  a  Murillo  picture,  and  a  rich 
Spanish  beauty  that  would  have  been  very  noble,  but  for  a 
look  of  wavering  indecision  and  a  startled,  timorous,  appealing 
glance  too  often  in  his  eyes. 

It  was  not  there  now;  he  was  smiling  down  on  his  picture 
with  a  blissful  content  in  his  promise.  It  had  the  pure,  clear, 
cool  color  of  the  French  school,  with  the  luxuriance  of  an 
overflowing  fancy  less  strictly  educated,  more  abundantly  loos- 
ened, than  theirs;  it  was  intensely  idealic,  far  from  all  real- 
ism, withal  voluptuous,  yet  never  sensual.  The  type  of  his 
nature  might  be  found  in  the  j^icture;  it  was  high,  but  it  hac] 
scarcely  strength  enough  in  it  to  be  the  highest.  Still,  it  was 
of  a  rare  talent,  a  rare  poetry,  and  he  might  w^ell  look  on  it 
contented;  he  only  turned  from  it  to  smile  more  fondly  even 
still  in  the  face  of  a  young  girl  who  leaned  her  hands  on  his 
shoulder  to  look  at  it  with  him — a  girl  with  the  glow  in  her 
laughing  loveliness  that  was  in  the  warm  autumnal  sunlight 
without,  the  loveliness  rich  and  full  of  grace  of  a  Spauiard  of 
Mexico. 

"  You  arehai^py,  Agostino,  with  it  and  with  me?"  she  asked, 
in  a  caressing  murmur,  with  her  ripe  scarlet  lips,  that  had  the 
bloom  of  their  earliest  years  on  them,  close  against  his. 

There  was  a  passionate  love  in  his  eyes,  and  there  was  some- 
thing of  as  passionate  a  regret,  as  he  answered  her: 

"  Mi  qnerida  !  you  and  it  give  me  all  of  hapi^mess  I  ever 
know." 

And  that  was  much,  in  such  moments  at  least,  with  the 
gloriousuess  of  his  own  art  on  the  canvas  before  him  in  a  shape 
that  men  would  admire  and  honor,  and  that  si^oke  to  his  heart 
more  sweetly  than  it  could  ever  speak  to  theirs,  and  against  his 
cheek  the  full  and  fragrant  lips  of  a  woman  he  had  loved  at  a 
glance  with  a  Southern  fervor,  and  won  at  a  sharp  cost  tlnit 
heightened  the  joy  of  possession.  In  that  moment  at  least  the 
artist,  the  lover,  was  liappy. 

As  he  stood  before  his  i)icture,  in  the  peace  of  the  early  day, 
the  door  opened,  a  light  quick  step  trod  on  the  oak  floor. 

**Ah,  cher  Agostino!  how  go  the  world  and  the  pictures? 
You  and  La  Seflora  are  a  study  for  one!'* 

The  painter  started,  with  a  sudden  shiver  that  ran  through 
all  his  limbs;  a  deathly  pallor  came  under  the  warm  olive  tint 


463  CHANDOS. 

of  his  clieek;  he  stood  silent,  like  a  stricken  man.  Tho 
Spanish  girl,  who  had  hurriedly  moved  from  his  embrace,  with 
a  blush  over  her  face,  did  not  see  his  agitation;  she  was  look- 
ing shyly  and  in  wonder  at  the  stranger  who  entered  so  un- 
ceremoniously on  their  solitude. 

"Haven't  seen  you  for  some  time,  my  good  Agostino/* 
pursued  John  Trevenna,  walking  straight  up  toward  tbi 
easel  without  taking  the  trouble  to  remove  his  hat  from  over 
his  eyes  or  his  cigar  from  between  his  lips — bright,  quick, 
good-humored,  careless,  and  easy,  as  he  was  everywhere, 
sauntering  up  the  body  of  the  Commons,  chatting  at  a  cover- 
side,  discussing  foreign  questions  in  a  Legation,  or  playing 
billiards  with  a  duke.  '*  What  are  you  doing  here? — anything 
pretty?  Queer  thing.  Art,  to  be  sure!  Never  did  under- 
stand it — never  should.  Let  me  see;  a  youug  lady  without 
any  drapery — unless  some  ivy  on  her  hair  can  be  construed 
into  a  concession  to  society  on  that  head — and  a  general  at- 
mosphere about  her  of  moist  leaves  and  hazy  uncomfortable- 
ness.  Now  you've  'idealized'  her  into  something,  I'll  be 
bound,  and  will  give  her  some  sonorous  Hellenic  title,  eh? 
That's  always  the  way.  An  artist  gives  his  porter's  daughter 
five  francs  and  a  kiss  to  sit  to  him,  dresses  her  up  with  some 
two-sous  bunches  of  primroses  from  the  Marche  des  Fleurs, 
paints  her  while  they  smoke  bad  tobacco  and  chatter  argot 
together,  and  calls  her  the  Geinus  of  the  Spring,  or  something 
as  crack-jaw.  Straightway  the  connoisseurs  and  critics  go 
mad:  it's  an  '  artistic  foreshadowing  of  the  divine  in  woman;' 
or  it's  an  '  idealic  representation  of  the  morning  of  life  and  the 
budding  renaissance  of  the  earth;'  or  it's  a  '  fusion  of  many 
lights  into  one  harmonious  whole;'  or  it's  some  other  art- 
jargon  as  nonsensical.  And  if  you  talk  the  trash,  and  stare 
at  the  nude  '  Genius,'  it's  all  right;  but  if  you  can't  talk  the 
trash,  and  like  to  look  at  the  live  grisette  dancing  a  rigolboche, 
it's  all  wrong,  and  you're  'such  a  coarse  fellow!'  That's  why 
I  don't  hke  Art;  she's  such  a  humbug.  'Idealism!'  Why, 
it's  only  Realism  washed  out  and  vamped  up  with  a  little 
glossing,  as  the  raw-boned,  yellow-skinned  ballet-hacks  are 
dresesd  up  in  paint  and  spangles  and  gossamer  petticoats  and 
set  floating  about  as  fairies.  '  Idealism!' — that's  the  science 
of  seeing  things  as  they  aren't;  that's  all." 

With  which  Trevenna,  with  his  glass  in  his  eye  and  his  cigar 
in  his  teeth,  completed  his  lecture  on  art,  hitting  truth  in  the 
bull's  eye,  as  he  commonly  did,  refreshing  the  Hudibrastic 
vein  in  him  for  his  compulsory  hypocrisies  by  a  sparring- 
match  with  other  people's  humbugs.     He  lied  because  every- 


CHANDOS.  463 

body  lied,  because  it  was  politic,  because  it  was  necessary,  be- 
cause it  was  one  of  the  weapons  that  cut  a  way  up  the  steep 
and  solid  granite  of  national  vanity  and  social  conventionali- 
ties; but  the  man  himself  was  too  jovially  cynical  (if  such  an 
antithesis  may  be  used)  not  to  be  naturally  candid.  He  would 
never  have  had  for  liis  crime  the  timorous  conventional  Cicero- 
nian euphemism  of  Vixerunt;  he  would  have  come  out  from  the 
Tullianum  and  told  the  people,  with  a  laugh,  that  he'd  killed 
Lentulus  and  the  whole  of  that  cursed  set  because  they  were 
horribly  in  the  way  and  were  altogether  a  bad  lot.  He  held 
his  secret  cards  closer  than  any  man  living;  but  all  the  same 
he  never  pandered  with  his  actions  under  sjjecious  names  to 
himself,  and  he  had  by  nature  the  "cynical  frankness  "  of 
Sulla.  Indeed,  this  would  sometimes  break  out  of  him,  and 
cleave  the  dull  air  of  English  politics  with  a  rush  that  made 
its  solemn  respectabilities  aghast — though  the  mischief  hap- 
pened seldom,  as  Trevenna,  like  Jove,  held  his  lightning  in 
sure  command,  and  was,  moreover,  the  last  man  in  the  uni- 
verse to  risk  an  Icarus  flight. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  great  popular  leader  uttered  his  diatribe 
against  art,  standing  before  the  easel,  puffing  smoke  into  the 
fair  face  of  a  young  Dryad,  who  might  justly  have  claimed 
sisterhood  with  Ingres's  creations,  the  painter  had  remained 
silent  and  passive,  his  Rubens  head  bent  down,  on  his  face  a 
still,  cold,  gray  look,  like  that  of  a  man  about  to  faint  from 
physical  pain;  the  lids  drooped  heavily  over  his  eyes;  his  limbs 
trembled;  he  stood  like  a  slave  before  his  task-master.  The 
girl  had  left  them  at  a  murmured  word  in  Spanish  from  him, 
and  they  stood  alone.  Trevenna  dropped  himself  into  the 
painting-chair  with  his  easy  familiarity,  which,  though 
something  polished  and  toned  down  by  the  life  he  led  and  the 
circles  he  frequented,  had  all  its  old  hon-camaraih  informality: 
a  looker-on  would  have  said  it  was  the  brilliant  minister,  the 
moneyed  patron,  who  came  on  a  good-natured  visit  to  the 
foreign  artist. 

"  You  are  not  lively  company,  cher  Agostino,  nor  yet  a 
welcoming  host,"  he  resumed.  "  Didn^t  expect  to  see  me, 
I  dare  say?  I  haven't  much  time  to  run  about  ateliers;  still, 
as  I  was  staying  at  the  court,  I  thought  I'd  give  you  a  look. 
So  you've  married,  eh?  Very  pretty  creature,  too,  I  dare  say, 
for  men  who  understand  that  style  of  thing;  myself,  I'm  a 
better  judge  of  a  louiUahaisse  than  of  a  mistress.  Married, 
eh?  You  know  what  Bacon  says  about  marriage  and  hostages 
to  fortune,  don't  your" 

The  artist's  dry  lips  opened  without  words;  his  eyelids  were 


464  CHANDOS. 

raised  for  a  moment,  with  a  piteous,  hunted  misery  beneath 
them;  he  knew  the  meaning  of  the  question  put  to  him. 

*'  Don't  know  very  well  what  Bacon  meant,  myself," 
pursued  Trevenna,  beating  a  careless  tattoo  with  the  maul- 
stick. "  Wives  and  brats  are  hostages  most  men  would  be 
uncommonly  glad  to  leave  unredeemed,  I  fancy — goods  they 
wouldn't  want  to  take  out  of  pawn  in  a  hurry  if  they  once 
got  rid  of  'em.  So  you've  married?  Well,  I've  no  objection 
to  that,  if  yon  see  any  fun  in  it:  /shouldn't.  You've  learned 
one  piece  of  wisdom:  you  never  try  dodging  now.  Quite 
right.     Wherever  you  might  go,  /should  know  it." 

The  man  who  stood  before  him,  like  a  slave  whom  the 
blood-hounds  have  run  down  and  brought  back  to  their  bond- 
age, shuddered  as  he  heard. 

"  Oh,  God!"  he  murmured,  *'  can  you  not  spare  me  yet?  I 
am  so  nameless  a  thing  in  the  world's  sight,  beside  you!  You 
have  such  vast  schemes,  such  vast  ambitions,  so  wide  a  repute, 
so  broad  a  field:  can  you  never  forget  me,  and  let  me  go?" 

"  Cher  Agostino,"  returned  the  Eight  Honorable  Member, 
"  you  are  illogical.  A  thing  may  be  insignificant,  but  it  may 
be  wanted.  A  jmwn  may,  before  now,  have  turned  the  scale 
of  a  champion  game  of  chess.  Take  care  of  the  trifles,  and 
the  big  events  will  take  care  of  themselves.  That's  my 
motto;  though,  of  course,  you  don't  understand  this,  seeing 
that  your  trade  in  life  is  to  scatter  broad  splashes  of  color  and 
leave  fancy  to  fill  'em  up — to  paint  a  beetle's  back  as  if  the 
universe  hung  in  the  pre-Raphaelism,  and  to  trust  to  Provi- 
dence that  your  daub  of  orange  looks  like  a  sunset — to  make 
believe,  in  a  word,  with  a  little  pot  of  oil  and  a  little  heap  of 
colored  earths,  just  for  all  the  world  as  children  play  at  sand- 
building,  in  the  very  oddest  employment  that  ever  a  fantastic 
devil  set  the  wits  of  a  man  after!  You  are  unpractical,  that's 
a  matter  of  course;  but  you  are  more: — you  are  desperately 
ungrateful!" 

A  quiver  of  passion  shook  the  artist's  frame;  the  scarlet 
flood  flushed  the  olive  of  his  delicate  cheek;  he  recoiled  and 
rebelled  against  the  tyranny  that  set  its  iron  heel  upon  his 
neck,  as  years  before  the  beautiful  lad,  whom  the  old  Hebrew 
loved,  had  done  so  in  the  gloomy  city  den. 

"  Ungrateful!  Are  men  grateful  whose  very  life  is  not 
their  own?  Are  men  grateful  who  hourly  draw  their  breath 
as  a  scourged  dog's?  Are  men  grateful  who  from  their  boy- 
hood upward  have  had  their  whole  future  held  in  hostage  as 
chastisement  for  one  poverty-sown  sin? — grateful  for  having 
their  spirits  broken,  their  souls  accursed,  their  hearts  fettered, 


CHANDOS.  465 

their  steps  dogged,  their  sleep  haunted,  their  manhood  ruined? 
If  they  are  grateful,  so  am  I;  not  else.'* 
Treveima  laughed  good-humoredly. 

"  My  good  fellow,  I  always  told  you  you  ought  to  go  on  the 
stage:  you'd  make  your  fortune  there.  Such  a  speech  as  that, 
now — all  a  riniproviste,  too — would  bring  down  any  house. 
Decidedly  you've  histrionic  talents,  Agostino;  you'd  be  a 
second  Talma.  All  your  raving  set  apart,  however  (and  you're 
not  good  at  elocution,  tres-cher;  who  can  '  fetter  '  hearts?  who 
can  '  break  '  spirits?  It  sounds  just  like  some  doggerel  for  a 
valentine),  you  are  ungrateful.  I  might  have  sent  you  to  the 
hulks,  and  didn't.  My  young  Jew,  you  ought  to  be  im- 
measurably my  debtor. " 

He  spoke  quite  pleasantly,  beating  a  rataplan  with  the 
maul-stick,  and  sitting  crosswise  on  the  painting-chair.  He 
was  never  out  of  temper,  and  some  there  were  who  learned  to 
dread  that  bright,  sunny,  insolent,  mirthful  good  humor  as 
they  never  dreaded  the  most  fiery  or  the  most  sullen  furies  of 
other  men.  Even  in  the  political  arena,  opponents  had  been 
taught  that  there  was  a  fatal  power  in  that  cloudless  and  racy 
good  temper,  which  never  opened  the  slightest  aperture  for 
attack,  but  yet  caught  them  so  often  and  so  terribly  on  the  hip. 

"  Very  ungrateful  you  are,  my  would-be  Rubens,'*  re- 
sumed Trevenna.  "  Only  think!  Here  is  a  man  who  com- 
mitted a  downright  felony,  whom  I  could  have  put  in  a  con- 
vict's chains  any  day  I  liked,  and  I  did  nothing  to  him  but 
let  him  grow  up,  and  turn  artist,  and  live  in  the  j^leasantest 
city  in  the  world,  and  marry  when  he  fancied  the  folly,  and 
do  all  he  liked  in  the  way  he  liked  best;  and  he  can't  see  that  he 
owes  me  anything!     Oh,  the  corruption  of  the  human  heart!" 

"With  vvhicli  Trevenna,  having  addressed  the  exposition  to 
the  Dryad  on  the  easel,  dealt  her  a  little  blow  with  tiio  maul- 
stick, and  made  a  long,  cruel  blur  across  the  still  moist  paint 
of  her  beautiful,  gravely  smiling  mouth,  that  it  had  cost  the 
painter  so  many  hours,  so  many  days,  of  loving  labor  to  perfect. 

Agostino  gave  an  involuntary  cry  of  anguish.  He  coidd 
have  borne  iron  blows  rained  down  on  his  own  head  like  hail 
better  than  he  could  bear  that  ruin  of  his  work,  that  outrage 
to  his  darling. 

"  I  do  it  in  the  interest  of  morality;  she's  too  pretty  and  too 
sensual,"  laughed  Trevenna,  as  he  drew  the  instrument  of 
torture  down  over  the  delicate  brow  and  the  long  flowing 
tresses,  making  a  blurred,  blotted,  beaten  mass  where  the 
thing  of  beauty  had  glowed  on  tlie  canvas.  He  would  not 
have  thought  of  it,  but  tliat  the  gleam  of  fear  in  his  victim's 


466  CHAIfDOS. 

eyes,  as  the  stick  had  accidentally  slanted  toward  the  easel, 
had  first  told  him  the  ruin  he  might  make.  To  torment  wag 
a  mischief  and  a  merriment  that  he  could  never  resist,  strong 
as  his  self-control  was  in  other  things. 

It  was  the  one  last  straw  that  broke  the  long-suffering  cam- 
eVs  back.  With  a  cry  as  though  some  murderer's  knife  were 
at  his  own  throat,  the  painter  sprung  forward  and  caught  his 
tyrant's  arm,  wrenching  the  maul-stick  away,  though  not  un- 
til it  was  too  late  to  save  his  Dryad,  not  until  the  ruthless 
cruelty  had  done  its  pleasure  of  destruction. 

*'  Merciful  God!"  he  cried,  impassionately,  "  are  you  devil, 
not  man?  Sate  yourself  in  my  wretchedness;  but,  for  pity's 
sake,  spare  my  works,  the  only  treasure  and  redemption  of 
my  weak,  worthless,  accursed  life!" 

Trevenna  shrugged  his  shoulders,  knocking  his  cigar-ash  off 
against  the  marvelous  clearness  of  limpid,  bubbling,  pris- 
matic, sunlit  water  at  the  Dryad's  feet,  that  had  made  one  of 
the  chief  beauties  and  wonders  of  the  picture. 

'*  Agostino,  bon  enfant,  you  sJioidd  go  on  the  stage.  You 
speak  in  strophes,  and  say  '  good-day '  to  anybody  like  an 
Orestes  seeing  the  Furies!  It  must  be  very  exhausting  to  keep 
up  at  that  perpetual  melodramatic  height.  Try  life  in  shirt- 
sleeves and  slippers;  it's  as  pleasant  again  as  life  in  the  tragic 
toga.  Be  logical.  What's  to  prevent  my  slashing  that  pict- 
ure across,  right  and  left,  with  my  pen-knife,  if  I  like?  Not 
you.  You  think  your  life  '  weals  and  worthless;'  far  be  it 
from  me  to  disagree  with  you;  but  what  you  think  you  '  re- 
deem '  it  in  by  painting  young  ladies  f?w  naturelfvom  immoral 
models,  putting  some  weed  on  their  head  and  a  pond  at  their 
feet,  and  calling  it  '  idealism,'  I  can't  see;  that's  beyond  me. 
However,  I'm  not  an  idealist;  perhaps  that's  why." 

With  which  he  swayed  himself  back  in  the  painting-chair, 
and  prodded  the  picture  all  over  with  his  cigar,  leaving  little 
blots  of  ash  and  sparks  of  fire  on  each  spot.  Martin  and 
Gustave  Dore  are  mere  novices  in  the  art  of  inventing  tortures, 
beside  the  ingenuity  of  Trevenna's  laughing  humor. 

The  man  he  lectured  thus  stood  silent  by,  paralyzed  and 
onivering  with  an  anguish  that  trembled  in  him  from  head  to 
foot.  Agostino  had  not  changed;  the  yielding,  timorous,  sen- 
sitive nature,  blending  a  vivid  imagination  with  a  woman's 
susceptibility  to  fear,  was  unaltered  in  him,  and  laid  him  ut- 
terly at  the  mercy  of  every  stronger  temperament  and  sterner 
will,  even  when  he  was  most  roused  to  the  evanescent  fire  of  a 
futile  rebellion. 

*'  Oh,  Heaven!"  he  moaned,  passionately,  **  I  thought  you 


CHANDOS.  467 

had  forgotten  me!  I  thought  you  had  wearied  of  my  misery, 
and  would  leave  me  in  a  little  peace!  You  are  so  rich,  so 
famous,  so  successful;  you  have  had  so  many  victims  greater 
far  than  I;  you  stand  so  high  in  tlie  world's  sight.  Can  you 
neve)'  let  one  so  poor  and  powerless  as  I  go  free?" 

"  Poor  and  powerless  is  a  figure,"  said  Trevenna,  with  a 
gesture  of  his  cigar.  "  You  will  use  such  exaggerated  lan- 
guage; your  beggarly  httle  nation  always  did,  calling  them- 
selves the  chosen  of  Heaven  when  they  were  the  dirtiest  little 
lot  of  thieves  going,  and  declaring  now  that  they're  waiting  for 
their  Messiah  while  they're  buying  our  old  clothes,  picking  up 
our  rags,  and  lying  aa  plaisir  in  our  police-courts!  You 
aren't  poor,  cher  Agostino,  for  a  painter;  and  you're  really 
doing  well.  Paris  talks  of  your  pictures,  and  the  court  likes 
your  young  ladies  in  ivy  and  nothing  else.  You're  prosperous 
— on  my  word,  you  are;  but  don't  flatter  yourself  I  shall  ever 
forget  you.     I  don't  forget." 

He  sent  a  puff  of  smoke  into  the  air  with  those  three  words; 
in  them  he  embodied  the  whole  of  his  career,  the  key-note  of 
his  character,  the  pith  and  essence  at  once  of  his  success  and 
of  his  pitilessness. 

A  heavy,  struggling  sigh  burst  from  his  listener  as  he 
heard;  it  was  the  self-same  contest  that  had  taken  place  years 
previous  in  the  lamp-lit  den  of  the  bill-discounting  offices,  the 
contest  between  weakness  that  suffered  mortally  and  power 
that  unsparingly  enjoyed.  The  terrible  bondage  had  inclosed 
Agostino's  whole  life;  he  felt  at  times  that  it  would  pursue 
him  even  beyond  the  grave. 

"  Is  there  no  price  I  can  pay  at  once?"  he  said,  huskily, 
his  voice  broken  as  with  physical  pain — "  no  task  I  can  work 
out  at  a  blow? — no  tribute-money  I  can  toil  for,  that,  gained, 
will  buy  me  peace?" 

"  As  if  I  ever  touched  a  sou  of  his  earnings,  or  set  him  to 
paint  my  walls  for  nothing!  Mercy!  the  ingratitude  of  the 
Hebrew  race!"  cried  Trevenna,  amusedly,  to  his  cigar. 

The  black,  sad,  lustrous  eyes  of  the  Spanish  Jew  flashed 
with  a  momentary  fire  that  had  the  longing  in  them,  for  the 
instant,  to  strike  his  tyrant  down  stone-dead. 

"  Take  my  money?  No!  You  do  not  seek  that,  because  it 
is  a  drop  in  the  ocean  beside  all  that  you  possess,  all  that  you 
have  robbed  other  men  of  so  long!  I  make  too  little  to  teni])t 
you,  or  you  would  have  wrung  it  out  of  me.  But  you  have 
done  a  million  times  worse.  You  have  taken  my  youth,  my 
hope,  my  s])irit,  my  liberty,  and  killed  them  all.  You  have 
made  a  mockery  of  n)ercy,  thiit  you  might  hold  me  in  a  cap^ 

7-21  lialL 


468  CHANDOS. 

tivity  worse  than  any  slave's.  You  have  made  me  afraid  to 
love,  lest  what  I  love  should  be  dragged  beneath  my  shame. 
You  have  made  me  dread  that  she  should  bear  me  children, 
lest  they  be  born  to  their  father's  fate.  You  have  ruined  all 
manhood  in  me,  and  made  me  weak  and  base  and  terror- 
stricken  as  any  cur  that  cringes  before  his  master's  whip.  You 
have  made  me  a  poorer,  lower,  viler  wretch  than  I  could  ever 
have  been  if  the  Law  had  taken  its  course  on  me,  and  beaten 
strength  and  endurance  into  me  in  my  boyhood  by  teaching 
me  openly  and  unflinchingly  the  cost  of  crime,  yet  had  left  me 
some  gate  of  freedom,  some  hope  of  redemption,  some  release 
to  a  liberated  Hfe  when  my  term  of  chastisement  should  have 
been  over— left  me  all  that  you  have  denied  me  since  the  hour 
you  first  had  me  in  your  power,  in  a  cruelty  more  horrible  and 
more  unending  than  the  hardest  punishment  of  justice  ever 
could  have  been." 

The  torrent  of  words  poured  out  in  his  rich  and  ringing 
voice,  swifter  and  more  eloquent  the  higher  his  revolt  and  the 
more  vain  his  anguish  grew.  This  was  his  nature  to  feel  pas- 
sionately, to  rebel  passionately,  to  lift  up  his  appeal  in  just 
and  glowing  protestation,  to  recoil  under  his  bondage  suffer- 
ing beyond  all  expression,  but  to  do  no  more  than  this— to  be 
incapable  of  action,  to  be  powerless  for  real  and  vital  resist- 
ance, to  spend  all  his  strength  in  that  agonized  upbraiding, 
which  he  must  have  known  to  be  as  futile  as  for  the  breakers 
to  fret  themselves  against  the  granite  sea-wall. 

Trevenna  hstened  quietly,  with  a  certain  amusement.  It  was 
always  uncommonly  droll  to  him  to  see  the  struggles  of  weak 
natures;  he  knew  they  would  recoil  into  his  hand,  passive  and 
helpless  agents,  conquered  by  the  sheer,  unexpressed  force  of 
his  own  vigorous  and  practical  temperament.  Studies  of  char- 
acter were  always  an  amusement  to  him;  he  had  a  La-Bru- 
y^re-like  taste  for  their  analysis;  the  vastness  of  his  knowledge 
of  human  nature  did  not  prevent  his  relishing  all  its  minutiae. 
What  the  subjects  of  his  study  might  suffer  under  it  was  no 
more  to  him  than  what  the  frog  suffers,  when  he  pricks,  flays, 
cuts,  beheads,  and  lights  a  lucifer  match  under  it,  is  to  the 
man  of  science  in  his  pursuit  of  anatomy  and  his  refutation  of 

Aristotle.  r.     ^.r     •       ah 

"  Very  well  done!  pity  it's  not  at  the  Porte  St.  Martni.  Ail 
bosh!  Still,  that's  nothing  against  a  bit  of  melodrama  any- 
where," he  said,  carelessly.  "  Shut  up  now,  though,  please. 
Let's  go  to  business."  i    •  1 4. 

The  artist  seemed  to  shiver  and  collapse  under  the  bright, 
brief  words;  the  heart-sick  passions,  the  flame  of  sudden  r&- 


CHANDOS.  469 

belliou,  and  the  fire  of  vain  recrimination  faded  off  his  face, 
his  head  sunk,  his  L"ps  trembled;  just  so,  years  before,  had 
the  vivid  grace  of  his  youth  shrunk  \nd  withered  under  his 
task-master's  eye. 

"  You  paint  the  Princess  Rossillio's  portrait?^'  pursued  hia 
catechist. 
,     Agostino  bent  his  head. 

"And  go  to  her,  of  course,  to  take  it?" 

The  Spanish  Jew  gave  the  same  mute  assent. 

"  Can't  you  speak?  Don't  keep  on  nodding  there,  hke  -« 
mandarin  in  a  tea-shop.  You'd  words  enough  just  now.  Yoq 
paint  it  in  her  boudoir,  don't  you,  because  the  light's  best?'' 

Agostino  lifted  his  heavy  eyes. 

"  Since  you  know,  why  ask  me?" 

"  Leave  questions  to  me,  and  reply  tout  href,"  said  his  in. 
terrogator,  with  a  curt  accent  that  bore  abundant  meaning. 
*'  You've  seen  a  Russian  cabinet  that's  on  the  right  hand  oi 
the  fire-place?" 

"I  have." 

"  Ah!  you  can  answer  sensibly  at  last!  "Well,  that  cabinet*? 
madame's  dispatch-box.  You  know,  or  you  may  know,  thar 
she  is  the  most  meddlesome  intriguer  in  EurojDC;  but  that's 
nothing  to  you.  In  the  left-hand  top  drawer  is  her  Austro- 
Venetiati  correspondence.  Among  it  is  a  letter  from  the 
Vienna  Nuncio.  When  you  leave  the  boudoir  to-day,  you  will 
know  what  that  letter  contains.*' 

Agostino  started;  a  dew  broke  out  on  his  forehead,  a  flush 
stained  his  clear  brown  cheek  with  its  burning  shame;  his 
eyes  grew  terribly  piteous. 

"More  sin!  more  dishonor!''  he  muttered,  in  his  throat. 
"  Let  me  go  and  starve  in  the  streets,  rather  than  drive  me  to 
such  deeds  as  these!'* 

Trevenna  laughed,  his  pleasant  bonhomie  in  no  way 
changed,  though  there  was  a  dash  more  of  autnority  in  his  tone. 

"  Quiet,  you  Jew  dog!  Eealiy,  you  do  get  too  melodram- 
atic to  be  amusing.  There's  no  occasion  for  any  heroics;  but 
— you'll  be  able  to  tell  me  this  time  to-morrow." 

The  artist  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  and  his  form 
shook  to  and  fro  in  an  irrepressible  agitation. 

"  Anything  but  this! — anything  but  this!  Give  me  what 
labor  you  will,  what  [)overty,  what  shame;  but  not  this!  I 
can  never  look  in  })eace  into  my  darling's  eyes,  if  I  take  this 
villainy  upon  my  life?" 

"Nobody's  alluding  to  villainy,"  said  Trevenna,  with  a 
tranquil  brevity.     "  As  to  vour  darling's  eyes,  they're  nothing 


470  CHANDOS. 

to  anybody  except  yourself;  you  can  make  what  arrangements 
for  '  looking  into  '  'em  you  like.  If  the  only  men  who  '  look 
into  '  women's  eyes  are  the  honest  ones,  the  fair  sex  must  get 
uncommon  few  lovers.  You've  heard  what  I  said.  Know 
what  the  letter's  about.  I  don't  tell  you  how  you're  to  know 
it.  Get  the  princess  to  show  it  jou.  You're  a  very  handsome 
fellow — black  curls  and  all  the  rest  of  it — and  her  highness  is 
a  connoisseur  in  masculine  charms." 

With  which  Trevenna  laughed,  and  got  up  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  painting-chair. 

Agostino  stood  in  his  path,  a  deep-red  flush  on  his  forehead, 
the  blaze  of  a  freshly  lightened  rebellion  in  his  eyes,  bis  Muril- 
lo-like  beauty  all  on  fire,  as  it  were,  with  wretchedness  and 
passion. 

"  You  use  your  power  over  me  to  force  me  to  such  things 
in  your  service  as  this!  What  if  they  were  spoken!  what  if 
they  were  cited  against  you?  You,  high  as  you  are  in  your 
success  and  your  wealth  and  your  rank,  would  be  thought 
lower  yet  than  /  have  ever  fallen.  Do  you  not  fear,  even  you, 
that  one  day  you  may  sting,  and  goad  me  too  far,  and  I  may 
give  myself  up  to  your  worst  work  for  the  sake  of  obtaining 
my  vengeance?" 

Trevenna  smiled,  with  a  certain  laughing  good-tempered 
indulgence,  such  as  a  man  may  extend  to  a  child  who  menaces 
him  with  its  impotent  fury. 

"  Tres  cher,  ivlio  would  believe  you  ?  Say  anything  you 
like;  it's  nothing  to  me.  I  have  a  little  bit  of  paper  by  me 
that,  once  upon  a  time.  Monsieur  Agostino  Mathias  signed 
with  a  name  not  his  own.  I  was  very  lenient  to  him;  and  if 
he  doesn't  appreciate  the  clemency  the  world  will,  and  think 
him  an  ungrateful  young  Hebrew  cur,  who  turns,  like  all  curs, 
on  his  benefactor.  Prosecute  you  now  it  wouldn't,  perhaps, 
since  the  matter's  been  allowed  to  sleep;  but  criminate  you 
and  disgrace  5'ou  it  would  most  decidedly.  You'd  be  hounded 
out  all  over  Europe;  and  for  your  j^retty  Spaniard,  I  heard  a 
court  chamberlain  admiring  her  yesterday,  and  saying  she  was 
too  good  for  an  atelier — she'd  soon  be  his  mistress,  when  she 
knew  you  a  felon.  Ah,  my  poor  Agostino,  when  you  once 
broke  the  law,  you  put  your  head  into  a  steel-trap  you'll  never 
draw  it  out  of  again.  Only  fools  break  the  laws.  Excuse  the 
personality!'* 

Under  the  ruthless  words  of  truth  Agostino  shrunk  and 
cowered  agafn,  like  a  beaten  hound;  he  had  no  strength 
ftgPiinst  his  task-master — he  never  could  have  had;  he  was 
hemmed  in  beyond  escape.  Moreover,  now  he  had  another  and 


CHANDOS.  471 

a  yet  more  irresistible  rein  by  which  to  be  held  in  and  coerced 
— ^the  love  that  he  bore,  and  that  he  received  from,  his  youog 
wife. 

"You'll  do  that,  then:"  said  Trevenna,  with  the  careless- 
ness of  a  matter  of  course.  ''  Bring  some  picture  to  show  me 
to-morrow  morning — Darshampton  likes  pictures,  because  it 
couldn't  tell  a  sixpenny  daub  from  a  Salvator  Iiosa — and  re- 
member every  line  of  the  Xuncio's  letter.  You  understand? 
I  don't  want  to  hear  your  means;  I  only  want  the  results." 

"  I  will  try,"  muttered  Agostino.  He  loathed  crime  and 
dishonor  with  an  unutterable  hatred  of  it;  he  longed,  he 
strove,  to  keep  the  roads  of  right  and  justice;  his  nature  was 
one  that  lovfd  the  peace  of  virtue  and  the  daylight  of  fair 
deahng.  Yet,  by  his  unconquerable  fear,  by  his  wax-like  mo- 
bility of  temper/by  his  past  sin,  and  by  his  future  dread,  he 
was  forced  into  the  very  paths  and  made  the  very  thing  that 
he  abhorred. 

"  People  who  '  try'  aren't  my  people,"  said  the  Member 
for  Darshampton,  curtly.  "  Those  who  do  are  the  only  ones 
that  suit  me." 

Agostino  shrunk  under  his  eye. 

"I  will  come  to  you  to-morrow,'^  he  murmured,  faintly. 
He  had  no  thought,  not  the  slightest,  of  how  he  should  be  able 
to  accomjilish  this  sinister  work  that  was  set  him;  but  he 
knew  that  he  must  do  it,  as  surely  as  his  countrymen  of  old 
must  make  their  bricks  without  straw  for  their  conquerors  and 
enslavers. 

Trevenna  nodded,  and  threw  down  his  maul-stick  with  a 
final  lunge  at  the  Dryad. 

"  All  right!  of  course  you  will.  You  ought  to  be  very 
grateful  to  me  that  I  let  you  off  so  easily.  Some  men  would 
make  you  give  u[)  to  them  that  charming  Spanish  Senora  of 
yours,  as  Maurice  do  Saxe  took  Favart's  wife  de  la  jjarf  dtt 
rot.  But  that  isn't  my  line.  I've  coveted  a  good  many  things 
in  my  day,  but  I  never  coveted  a  woman. " 

With  which  ho  threw  his  smoked-out  cigar  away,  and  went 
across  the  atelier  and  out  at  the  door,  with  a  careless  nod  to 
his  victim.  He  had  so  much  to  fill  up  every  moment  of  his 
time,  that  he  could  ill  spare  the  ten  minutes  he  had  ilung 
away  in  the  amusement  of  racking  and  tormenting  the  help- 
lessness of  the  man  he  tortured,  and  he  knew  that  ho  would 
be  obeyed  as  surely  as  though  he  spent  the  whole  day  in  fur- 
ther threats. 

Trevenna  had  two  especial  arts  of  governing  at  his  fingers' 
ends;  he  never,  by  any  chance,  compromised  himself,  but  alse 


473  CHANDOS. 

he  never  waS;  bj  any  hazard,  disobeyed.  He  had  a  large  army 
cf  employes  on  more  or  less  secret  service  about  in  the  world; 
but  as  there  was  not  one  of  them  who  held  a  single  trifle  that 
could  damage  him,  so  there  was  not  one  of  them  who  ever 
ventured  not  to  "  come  up  to  time  "  exactly  to  his  bidding,  or 
to  fail  to  keep  his  counsel  with  "  silence  a  la  mort. " 

The  artist  Agostino,  left  to  his  solitude,  threw  himself  for- 
ward against  the  broad  rest  of  the  chair,  his  arms  flung  across 
it,  his  head  bent  down  on  them;  he  could  not  bear  to  look 
iipon  the  defaced  canvas  of  his  treasured  picture;  he  could  not 
bear  to  see  the  light  of  the  young  day,  while  he  knew  himself 
a  tool  so  worthless  and  so  vile.  The  world  smiled  on  hini; 
fame  came  to  him;  peace  surrounded  him;  the  desires  of  his 
heart  were  fulfilled  to  him;  and  all  was  poisoned  and  broken 
and  ruined  and  made  worthless  by  the  tyranny  that  dogged 
him  unceasingly,  that  seized  him  when  he  thought  he  had 
cheated  it  into  forgetfulness,  that  haunted  him  and  hunted 
him  with  the  phantom  of  his  dead  crime,  and  through  it  drove 
him  on  to  do  the  things  he  cursed  and  scorned.  He  might 
have  been  so  happy!  and  this  chain  was  forever  weighting  his 
limbs,  eating  into  his  flesh,  dragging  him  back  as  he  sought  a 
purer  life,  waking  him  from  his  sleep  with  its  chill  touch, 
holding  him  ever  to  his  master's  will  and  to  his  master's  work 
— will  and  work  that  left  him  free  and  unnoticed  perhaps  for 
years,  and  then,  when  he  had  begun  to  breathe  at  liberty  and 
to  hope  for  peace,  would  find  him  out  wherever  he  was,  and 
force  him  to  the  path  they  i^ointed! 

Agostino  had  hoped  oftentimes  that  as  his  bond-ruler  rose  in 
the  honor  of  men  and  the  success  of  the  world  he  would  for- 
get so  nameless  and  so  powerless  a  life  as  his  own:  he  had 
found  his  hope  a  piteous  error.  Ti-evenna  had  said  truly  he 
never  forgot;  the  smallest  weapon  that  might  be  ready  to  his 
hand  some  day  he  kept  continually  finely  polished  and  within 
his  reach.  The  painter  knew  that  he  must  learn  what  was  in- 
dicated to  him — by  betrayal  or  chicanery,  or  secret  violence, 
or  whatsoever  means  might  open  to  him — or  be  blasted  for  life 
by  one  word  of  his  tyrant.  lie  abhorred  the  dishonor,  but  he 
had  not  courage  to  refuse  it,  knowing  the  cost  of  such  refu- 
sal. It  was  not  the  first  time  by  many  that  such  missions  had 
been  bound  on  him;  yet  every  time  they  brought  fresh  horror 
and  fresh  hatred  with  them.  But  he  was  hunted  and  helpless; 
he  had  no  resistance;  throughout  his  life  he  had  paid  the  price 
exacted,  rather  than  meet  the  fate  that  waited  him  if  it  were 
unpaid.  He  clung  to  the  sweetness,  tlie  tranquillity,  the 
growing  renown,  and  the  newly  won  love  of  hi?  existence;  he 


CHAND03.  473 

clung  to  them,  even  imbittered  by  the  serpent's  trail  that  was 
over  them,  with  a  force  that  made  him  embrace  any  alterna- 
tive rather  than  see  them  perish,  that  laid  him  abjectly  at  the 
mercy  of  the  one  who  menaced  them. 

Lost  in  his  thoughts,  he  did  not  hear  the  footfall  of  the 
Spanish  girl  as  she  re-entered  the  atelier.  She  paused  a  mO' 
ment,  amazed  and  terrified,  as  she  saw  his  attitude  of  pros- 
trate grief  and  dejection,  then  threw  herself  beside  him  with 
endearing  words  and  tearful  caresses,  in  wonder  at  what  ailed 
him.  He  raised  himself  and  unwound  her  arms  from  about 
him,  shunning  the  gaze  of  her  eyes.  She  thought  him  as  true, 
as  loyal-hearted,  as  great,  as  he  knew  himself  to  be  weak  and 
criminal  and  hopelessly  enslaved. 

"  What  is  it?  What  has  happened?"  she  asked  him,  eager- 
ly, trying  to  draw  down  his  face  to  hers. 

He  smiled,  while  the  tears  started  woman-like  beneath  his 
lashes.     He  led  her  gently  toward  the  ruined  canvas. 

"  Only  that — an  accident,  my  love!*' 

The  brightness  of  the  Dryad  all  blurred  and  marred  by  the 
ruthlessness  of  tyranny  was  a  fit  emblem  of  his  life. 

By  noon  that  day,  in  the  boudoir  of  the  Italian  princess,  all 
glimmering  with  a  soft  glisten  of  azure  and  silver  through  its 
rose-hued  twilight,  he  chanced  to  be  left  for  a  few  moments  in 
solitude.     Her  highness  had  not  yet  risen. 

"Oh,  Godl"  he  thought,  ''do  devils  rule  the  world? 
There  are  always  doors  opened  so  wide  for  any  meditated  sin!" 
Then,  with  a  glance  round  him  like  a  thief  in  the  night,  his 
hand  was  pressed  on  the  spring  of  the  Russian  cabinet;  the 
letter  of  the  Nuncio  lay  uppermost,  with  its  signature  folded 
foremost;  a  moment,  and  its  delicate  feminine  writing  was 
scanned,  and  each  line  remembered  with  a  hot  and  terrible 
eagerness  that  made  it  graven  as  though  bitten  in  by  aqua- 
fortis on  his  memory.  The  note  was  put  back,  the  drawer 
closed;  the  artist  stood  bending  over  his  palette,  and  pouring 
the  oil  yj\\  some  fair  carmine  tints,  when  the  Princess  of  Na- 
ples swept  into  the  chamber. 

She  greeted  him  with  a  kindly,  careless  grace,  with  a  pleas- 
ant smile  in  the  brown  radiance  of  her  eyes;  and  she  saw  that 
his  cheek  turned  pale,  that  his  eyelids  drooped,  that  his  voice 
quivered,  as  he  answered  her. 

''  Fovero!  com'  e  bello !"  thought  Irene  Rossillio;  and  she 
laughed  a  little,  as  she  thought  that  even  this  Spanish  jQVf  of 
a  painter  could  not  come  into  her  jjresence  without  succumb- 
ing to  its  spell. 


474  CHANDOS. 


BOOK  THE  EIGHTH, 

Leave  liim,  still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects. 
Living  or  dying. 

Robert  Browkikg. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CLAIMANT  OF  THE   POKPHYEY  CHAMBEK. 

Before  the  door  of  au  Italian  albergo,  some  men  had  been 
drinking  and  laughing  in  the  ruddy  light  of  an  autumn  day, 
just  upon  the  setting  of  the  sun — men  of  the  mountains,  shep- 
herds, goat-herds,  and  one  or  two  of  less  peaceable  and  harm- 
less callings — rough  comrades  for  a  belated  night  on  the  hill- 
side, whose  argument  was  powder  and  ball,  and  whose  lair 
was  made  with  the  wolves  and  the  hares.  The  house,  low, 
lonel}",  poor,  was  overhung  with  the  festoons  of  vines,  and 
higher  yet  with  the  great  shelf  of  road-side  rock,  from  which 
there  poured  down,  so  close  that  the  wooden  loggia  was  often 
splashed  with  its  spray,  a  tumbling,  foaming,  brown  glory  of 
water  that  rolled  hissing  into  a  pool  dark  as  night,  turning  as 
it  went  the  broad  black  wood  of  a  mighty  mill-wheel.  The  men 
had  been  carousing  carelessly,  and  shouting  over  their  wine 
and  brandy  snatches  of  muleteer-  and  boat-song,  or  the  wild 
ribaldry  of  some  barcarolle,  their  host  drinking  and  singing 
with  them,  for  the  vintage  had  been  good,  and  things  went 
well  with  him  in  his  own  way,  here  out  of  the  track  of  cities, 
and  in  the  solitude  of  great  stretches  of  sear  sunburned  grass, 
of  dense  chestnut-forest,  of  hills  all  purple  and  cloud-topped 
in  the  vast,  clear,  dream- like  distance.  Now,  flushed  with  their 
drink  and  heedless  in  their  revels,  rough  and  tumultuous  as 
wild  boors  at  play,  they  were  circled  round  the  door-way  in  a 
ring  that  shut  out  alike  all  passage  to  the  osteria  and  all  pas- 
sage to  the  road;  and  they  were  enjoying  torture  with  that 
strange  instinctive  zest  for  it  that  underlies  most  human  nat- 
ure, and  breaks  out  alike  in  the  boor  who  has  a  badger  at  his 
mercy  and  the  Caesar  who  has  a  nation  under  his  foot. 

They  had  the  power  and  they  had  the  temptation  to  tor- 
ment, and  the  animal  natures  in  them,  hot  with  wine  and 
riotous  with  mirth  rather  than  with  any  colder  cruelty,  urged 


CHANDOS.  475 

them  on  in  it;  one  or  two  of  them,  also,  were  of  tempers  aa 
coarse  and  as  savage  as  any  of  the  brutes  that  they  hunted, 
aud  peals  of  brutal  laughter  rang  out  from  them  on  the  sunny 
autumn  air. 

"  Sing,  my  white-throated  bird!"  cried  one.  "  Dance  a 
measure  with  me!"  cried  another.  *'  Pour  this  down  your 
pretty  lips,  and  kiss  us  for  it!"  "  You'll  be  humble  enough 
before  we've  done  with  you,  my  proud  beauty!"  "  We'll  tie 
you  up  by  a  rope  of  that  handsome  bright  hair!"  '*  Come, 
now,  laugh  and  take  it  easy,  or,  by  Bacchus,  we'll  smash  thos© 
dainty  limbs  of  yours  like  maize-stalks!" 

The  shouts  echoed  in  tumult,  ringing  with  laughter,  and 
broken  with  oaths,  and  larded  with  viler  words  of  mountain- 
slang,  that  had  no  sense  to  the  ear  on  which  they  were  flung 
in  their  polluting  mirth.  In  the  center  of  the  ferocious  revel- 
ry, beneath  the  bronzed  and  crimsoned  canopy  of  the  hanging 
porch-vine,  and  with  the  western  light  shed  full  upon  her, 
stood  Castalia.  The  tall,  hthe,  voluptuous  grace  of  her'form 
rose  out  against  the  darkness  of  the  entrance-way  like  the 
slender,  lofty  height  of  a  young  palm;  the  masses  of  her  hair 
swept  backward  from  her  forehead.  Iler  face  was  white  a» 
death  to  the  lips;  an  unutterable  horror  was  on  it,  but  no 
yielding  fear;  it  was  proud,  dauntless,  heroic  with  the  spirit 
of  dead  Eome,  that  rose  higher  with  every  menace.  Her  eye» 
looked  steadily  at  the  savage,  flushed  faces  round  her,  so 
coarse,  so  loathsome  in  their  mirth;  her  hands  were  folded  on 
her  bosom,  holding  to  it  the  book  she  carried.  They  might 
tear  her  limb  from  limb,  as  they  threatened,  like  the  fibers  of 
the  maize;  but  the  royal  courage  in  lier  would  never  bend 
down  to  their  will.  They  had  hemmed  her  in  by  sheer  brute 
strength,  and  their  clamor  of  hideous  jest,  their  riot  of  inso- 
lent admiration,  were  a  torture  to  her  passing  all  torture  oi 
steel  or  of  flame;  but  they  could  not  wring  one  moan  from  her, 
much  less  could  they  wring  one  supplication. 

"  Altro!"  laughed  the  foremost,  a  sunburned,  colossal 
mountain-chief  of  the  Apennine.  "Waste  no  more  parlej 
with  her.  If  she  will  not  smile  for  fair  words,  she  shall  speak 
for  rough  ones.  My  pretty  princess,  give  me  the  first  kiss  of 
those  handsome  lips  of  yours!" 

He  launched  himself  on  her  as  he  spoke,  his  hand  on  the 
gold  of  her  hair  and  the  linen  broideries  of  her  delicate  vest; 
but  her  eyes  had  watched  his  movement:  with  a  shudder  like 
the  antelope's  under  the  tiger's  claws,  she  wrenched  herself 
from  him,  pierced  the  circle  of  her  torturers  before  they  could 
stay  her,  and,  before  they  could  note  what  she  did,  had  sprung 


^76  CHANDOS. 

with  the  mountain  swiftness  of  her  childhood  on  to  the  rocki 
overhangiJig  the  water-wheeL  Another  bound  in  midair, 
hght  and  far-reaching  as  a  chamois,  and  she  stood  on  tha 
broad  wooden  ledge  of  the  wlieel  itself,  that  was  stopped  from 
work  and  was  motionless  in  the  torrent,  with  the  foam  of  tha 
spray  flung  upward  around  her,  and  the  black  pool  hissing 
below.  A  yell  of  baffled  rage  broke  from  her  tormentors;  yet 
they  were  checked  and  paralyzed  at  the  daring  of  the  action 
and  at  tlie  beauty  of  her  posture,  as  she  was  poised  there  on 
the  wet  ledge  of  the  wheel-timber,  her  hair  floating  backward, 
her  eyes  flashing  down  upon  them,  her  hands  still  holding  the 
book,  the  roar  and  the  surge  of  the  torrent  beneath  her  mov- 
ing her  no  more  to  fear  than  they  moved  the  chamois  that 
spring  from  rock  to  rock.  They  forgot  their  passions  and 
their  fury  for  the  moment  in  amaze  and  in  admiration,  wrung 
out  from  them  by  a  temper  that  awed  them  the  more  because 
they  could  comprehend  it  in  nothing. 

*'  Come  down,'*  they  shouted,  with  one  voice;  *'  come 
down!    You  have  gone  to  your  death!'' 

Where  she  stood  on  the  wood-work,  with  the  water  splash- 
ing her  feet  and  the  boding  chasm  yawning  below,  she  glanced 
at  them  and  smiled. 

*'  Yes;  I  have  that  refuge  from  you.** 

**  Per  fedeT'  thundered  the  mountaineer  who  had  first  men- 
aced her,  "  there  are  two  can  play  at  that  game,  my  young 
fawn!'* 

With  a  leap,  quick  and  savage  as  his  own  rage,  he  sprung 
on  to  the  shelf  of  rock.  There  was  only  the  breadth  of  the  fall- 
ing water  between  them;  she  had  cleared  it,  so  could  he.  She 
looked  at  the  pool,  cavernous  and  deep,  at  her  feet,  then  let 
her  eyes  rest  on  him  calmly. 

**  Do  it,  if  you  dare!"  she  said,  briefly;  and  her  gaze  went 
backward  to  the  torrent  with  a  dreaming,  longing,  wistful  ten- 
derness. "  You  will  save  me!"  she  murmured  to  the  water. 
*'  There  is  only  one  pain  in  dying — to  leave  the  world  that  has 
his  life.'* 

She  swayed  herself  lightly,  balancing  herself  to  spring  with 
nnerring  measure  where  the  eddy  of  the  torrent  was  deepest. 
Arresting  her  in  the  leap,  and  startling  her  persecutors,  a 
voice,  deep  and  rich,  though  hollow  with  age,  fell  on  tha 
silence. 

*'  Wait!    Will  you  be  murderers?" 

Out  of  the  darkness  of  the  entrance  issued  the  tall,  bent, 
wasted   form  of  the  blind  Hebrew,  majestic  as  a  statue  c/ 


CHANDOS.  477 

Moses,  with  his  hands  outstretched,  and  his  sightless  eyes  seek- 
ing the  sunlight. 

""  I  am  blind,''  he  said,  slowly;  *'  but  I  know  that  wrong  is 
being  done.  Maiden,  whoever  you  be,  do  not  fear;  come  to 
me;  and  the  curse  of  the  God  of  the  guiltless  fall  on  those 
who  would  seek  to  harm  you  I" 

The  men,  stilled  ihoiigh  sullen,  riotous  rather  than  coldly 
cruel,  stood  silent  and  wavering,  glancing  from  her,  where  she 
was  poised  amidst  the  dusky  mist  of  the  foam-smoke,  to  the 
austere  and  solemn  form  of  the  old  man  suddenly  fronting 
them:  they  were  shamed  by  his  rebuke,  they  were  awed  by  her 
courage;  they  hung  like  sheep  together. 

"  Take  care!"  murmured  the  host,  who  was  alarmed,  and 
wished  the  scene  ended.  "  Let  her  go»  The  Jew  has  the  evil 
eye." 

A  faint  smile  flitted  over  the  withered,  saturnme  face  of  the 
Israelite. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  with  a  bitterness  that  under  the  turn 
of  the  words  was  acrid  with  remorse — "  yes,  I  have  the  evil 
eye.  Many  sonls  have  been  cursed  by  me;  many  men  have 
wished  that  their  mothers  had  never  borne  them  when  once  I 
have  looked  on  their  faces;  many  lives,  that  were  goodly  as 
the  young  bay-tree  ere  I  saw  them,  withered  and  fell  under 
my  glance.  Let  the  maiden  come  in  peace  to  me;  and  go,  or 
worse  will  happen  unto  you." 

The  subtlety  of  the  Hebrew  turned  to  just  account  the  boor- 
ish and  superstitious  terrors  of  the  men.  they  slunk  together 
in  awe  of  him. 

"It  was  only  play,''  they  muttered;  "we  meant  no 
harm." 

The  blackness  of  the  stern  sightless  eyes  that  were  turned  on 
them  filled  them  with  terror;  they  crossed  themselves,  and 
wished  the  earth  would  hide  them  from  his  poison-dealing 
glance.  Castalia,  where  she  stood,  watched  him  with  that 
meditative,  far-reaching  gaze  that  had  all  the  grave  innocence 
of  a  child,  all  the  luminous  insight  of  a  poet.  She  hold  her 
perilous  station  still  high  above  on  the  plank  of  the  wet  mill- 
wheel,  with  the  white  steam  of  the  torrent  curling  round. 

With  the  instinct  of  the  bhnd,  Ignatius  Mathias  turned  to- 
ward her. 

"  Come  down,  my  child:  I  will  have  care  of  you.** 

She  looked  at  him  gratefully,  earnestly.. 

"  T  will  come  when  they  have  left.'* 

The  .Jew  turned  to  them  with  a  gesture  majestic  as  an^ 
prophet's  command. 


47S  CHAISTDOS. 

*'  You  hear  her;  goP 

With  sullen,  muttered  oaths,  snarling  like  dogs  baffled  of  a 
bone,  the  mountaineers  slunk  from  him  into  the  osteria,  to 
drown  their  wrath  and  quench  their  superstitious  fears  in  some 
fresli  skins  of  wine.  Then  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  the  place 
where  he  knew  that  she  was,  and  where  the  rushing  of  the  tor- 
rent told  him  her  danger. 

"I  caa  not  aid  you:  I  have  no  sight:  but  you  will  trust 
me?'*  _  "  . 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment  longer,  then,  with  the  deer-like 
elasticity  and  surety  of  her  mountain-training,  sprung  once 
more  across  the  width  of  the  falling  stream,  and  down  the 
ntone  ledges,  all  slippery  with  the  moisture  and  holding  scarce 
footing  for  a  lizard,  and  came  to  him,  touching  his  hand  with 
I  grave,  reverential  gentleness. 

"  Yes,  I  will  trust  you.     I  thank  you,  very  greatly.** 

He  raised  his  hand,  and  touched  her  hair, 

"  I  can  not  see  you.  Your  voice  is  sweet,  and  sounds  very 
young;  but  it  is  proud.  It  is  not  the  voice  of  a  wanderer;  it 
epeaks  as  though  it  ought  to  command.     What  are  you?*' 

"  Very  friendless.** 

He  had  said  aright.  Her  voice  was  proud;  it  spoke  with- 
out a  tremor  now,  though  she  had  been  so  near  a  self-sought 
death. 

"  Truly.     Are  you  far  from  your  home?" 

"  Very  far.**  To  her  it  seemed  that  she  had  traversed  half 
the  world. 

"  And  why  have  you  left  it?'* 

**  Partly,  because  they  said  unjust  evil." 

*'0f  you?** 

**  Of  me,  and  of  one  other.  I  would  not  stay  where  the 
false  speakers  dwelt.  '* 

A  smile,  sardonic  and  sad,  passed  over  his  face. 

"  You  had  better  have  sought  the  refuge  beneath  the  water, 
then;  you  will  find  no  footing  to  your  taste  on  earth.  Are  yoa 
Llone,  wholly  alone?'* 

"  Yes.** 

**Ah!  and  are  still  but  a  child,  by  the  clearness  of  your 
voice.  To-day  is  but  a  sample  of  the  dangers  that  lie  in  wait 
Cor  you:  the  lions  will  not  let  such  a  fawn  go  bj  in  peace.** 

The  color  flushed  her  face. 

*'  There  is  alwa3^s  death,"  she  said,  calmly. 

*'  Not  always.     And  where  is  it  you  are  bound  now?" 

A  sigh,  heavy  and  exhausted,  escaped  her. 

*'  I  want  to  go  to  large  cities.*' 


CHANDOS.  470 

**  To  go  to  the  lions'  den  at  once,  then.  Large  cities!  And 
for  you,  who  chose  the  risk  of  your  grave  rather  than  a  rough 
caress  from  these  men  of  the  hills?  Do  you  know  what  cities 
are?" 

"  No;  but  I  must  go  to  them.'^  Her  hands  pressed  the 
book  closer;  she  thought  that  in  cities  alone  could  she  see  or 
hear  what  she  sought. 

The  austere,  worn,  darkened  face  of  the  Hebrew  grew 
gentler;  she  moved  his  pity,  all  pitiless  though  he  had  been; 
she  recalled  to  him  the  youth  of  his  dead  darling  when,  far 
away  in  the  buried  past,  his  heart  had  beat  and  his  life  had 
loved  in  the  summer  glories  of  the  sierras.  He  was  very  old, 
but  that  memory  lived  still. 

"  And  do  you  know  the  way  to  any  cities?" 

"Not  at  all." 

"  How  do  you  guide  yourself,  then?" 

"By  chance." 

"  And  chance  plays  you  cruel  caprices,  my  homeless  bird? 
What  chance  was  it  led  you  to  those  men?" 

She  shuddererl;  but  the  jjassionate  blood  that  ran  in  her 
flushed  her  cheek  and  glowed  imperially  in  her  eyes. 

"  They  were  boors,  and  had  boors'  barbarity!  I  asked  my 
way,  and  wanted  a  little  bread,  if  they  would  sell  it  me  at  the 
osteria;  and,  before  I  could  see  them,  those  men  were  round 
me,  bidding  me  laugh  and  dance  and  sing." 

"  Mayhap  if  you  had  done  so  you  would  have  put  them  in 
good  humor." 

He  was  blind,  and  could  not  see  the  look  that  glanced  on 
him  from  the  dark  shadows  of  her  lashes. 

"i.' — beg  their  sufferance,  by  obeying  their  bidding,  by 
amusing  their  idleness,  like  any  strolling  tambourine-singer? 
They  should  have  killed  me  first!" 

"  Verily,  you  should  have  emperors'  blood  in  you!  You 
well-nigh  killed  yourself  to  escape  them." 

The  darkened  scorn  that  told  the  strength  and  the  depths 
of  her  nature  came  on  her. 

"  Well,  wh.it  else  was  there  to  do?  Men  can  avenge  them- 
Belves;  women  can  only  die." 

He  bent  bis  eyes  on  her  as  tiiough,  sightless  as  they  were,  he 
would  fain  read  her  features. 

"  You  have  grand  creeds.     Who  taught  them?" 

"  They  are  not  creeds,  I  think;  they  are  instincts." 

"  Only  in  rare  natures.  But  have  you  none  in  all  the  worlj 
to  shield  you  frona  such  risks?" 

"  None.     But  I  can  shield  myself. " 


480  CTTAKDOS. 

"  How  do  you  live,  tbenr" 

'*  I  have  sold  the  flowers,  and  sung  an  office  here  and  th'^re. 
God  is  always  good.'' 

The  tears  welled  slowly  into  her  eyes.  She  would  not  say 
what  she  had  suffered. 

"But  why  is  it  that  you  wander  thus?  You  can  come  of 
no  peasant  blood?'' 

She  was  silent.  She  could  not  have  spoken  of  the  thoughts 
that  lay  at  her  heart— of  the  goal  that  made  her  search  for  the 
sake  of  life  itself.  The  words  which  had  been  said  to  her  in 
the  Italian  town  had  wakened  shame  and  frozen  her  to  silence, 
though  neither  her  purpose  nor  her  will  faltered. 

"  What  has  sent  you  out  alone?  Have  any  done  you 
wrong?" 

"  Only  they  who  spoke  evil  unjustly." 

"If  you  hold  that  Q,  wrong,  do  not  come  into  cities.  But 
you  speak  faintly.     Have  you  broken  your  fast?" 

"  Not  to-day.'" 

She  spoke  very  low;  she  could  not  lie,  but  she  could  not 
bear  to  say  the  truth— that  she  had  eaten  but  a  little  milk  and 
millet-bread  in  the  past  twenty-four  hours.  She  had  intense 
strength  to  endure,  and  she  had  too  much  pride  to  complain, 
though  a  faint  weakness  was  on  her,  and  her  limbs  seemed 
weighted  with  lead  in  the  aching  exhaustion  that  comes  from 
want  of  food.  His  sightless  eyes  sought  her  with  a  grave  com- 
passion; the  self-restrant  and  force  of  endurance  touched  the 
iron  mold  of  his  nature  as  softer  things  might  not  have  done. 

"  Well,  see  here.  I  am  poor,  but  I  am  a  little  wealthier  than 
you.  I  go  to  cities  where  my  people  are  good.  I  am  very 
aged;  but  still  I  can  give  you  some  guidance,  some  shield,  at 
least  from  insult.     Come  with  me." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  No.     It  is  a  gentle  charity;  but  I  can  not  take  charity." 

His  keen  ear  caught  the  haughty  meaning  of  the  words. 

"  AVhoever  you  are,  you  should  be  the  daughter  of  kings! 
Listen.  You  are  but  a  child,  and  I  claim  the  title  of  age.  I 
am  blind,  as  you  see;  I  am  sohtary,  I  have  no  companion, 
aave  only  my  little  dog;  you  can  aid  me  in  much.  Lend  me 
your  sight,  and  I  will  lend  you  my  counsel.  It  will  be  quit- 
tance of  all  debt  between  us.  I  go  to  Venice;  come  there, 
r,nd  from  there  3^ou  can  do  what  you  will." 

"To  Venice!" 

Her  eyes  lightened;  it  was  the  city  of  which  she  had  heard 
*nost  from  him  whom  she  sought— the  city  whence  Chandos 
had  come  into  the  beech- woods  below  Valombrosa. 


CHANDOS.  481 

**  Yes/'  answered  the  Jew,  "  One  is  gone  thither  whom  I 
follow.  Your  eyes  will  be  fair  friends  to  me;  let  me  have  their 
companionship  on  the  road,  at  least/' 

She  wavered.  The  longing  on  her  was  great  to  reach  Ven- 
ice. She  thought  that  there  the  silence  that  reigned  between 
her  and  the  life  she  had  lost  might  be  broken. 

"  Shall  it  be  so?'*  he  asked  her. 

She  stooped  with  her  soft,  suj^ple  grace,  and  touclied  his 
hand  again  gently. 

"  If  it  will  not  weary  you." 

*'  That  is  well!  Who  should  serve  each  other,  if  not  the 
desolate?  And  yet  I  spoke  not  altogether  wrongly  when  I 
told  those  ruffians  that  I  had  the  evil  eye.  Not  in  the  sense  of 
their  fools'  sujjerstitions,  but  my  eyes  have  been  evil;  sighb 
has  been  blasted  from  them  in  a  just  judgment.  My  life  has 
been  long,  and  cruel,  and  darkly  stained.  You  have  no  fear 
of  me?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  musing,  lingering  gaze.  The  face 
she  saw  was  stern  and  harsh  and  plowed  with  deep  lines;  but 
she  read  its  true  meaning  aright. 

"  No,"  she  said,  simply;  "  I  have  no  fear." 

The  brown,  furrowed  brow  of  the  old  man  cleared.  Because 
he  had  forfeited  the  right  to  trust,  trust  was  the  sweeter  to 
him. 

"  So! — that  is  right.  Youth  without  faith  is  a  day  without 
sun.  Yours  will  not  be  wronged  by  me.  Wait  awhile,  tlien; 
I  need  food,  and  they  shall  bring  you  some  grapes.  Your 
hands  are  hot.  AVhen  I  have  fairly  rested,  we  will  begin  to 
travel  onward.  Guide  me  to  the  shade.  Are  there  no  trees? 
There;  let  us  stay  there.  Have  no  fear;  your  persecutors 
will  not  return. " 

So  they  rested  beneath  the  gold -flecked  boughs  of  a  broad 
sycamore  that  grew  beside  the  pool  of  the  water-mill,  with  the 
depth  of  shadow  ilung  on  the  white  Syrian  head  of  the  old 
man,  and  the  deep  space  of  the  eddying  stream,  and  the  sun 
through  the  leaves  lighting  on  the  grace  of  her  young  limbs 
and  the  musing  beauty  of  her  eyes,  as,  where  the  book  of 
*'  Lucrece  "  lay  open  on  the  grass,  they  dwelt  on  the  words 
that  Castalia  knew  by  heart  as  a  child  knows  his  earliest  \miv- 
ers — that  had  never  spoken  to  any  as  they  spoke  to  her — that 
were  richer  in  her  sight  than  all  the  gold  of  the  world,  and 
were  to  her  as  in  Oriental  ages  the  scroll  that  their  prophets 
and  kings  had  traced  were  in  the  sight  of  the  people's  awed 
love  and  listening  reverence. 


482  CHANDOS. 

"It  was  not  true  to  say  I  was  alone/' s-he  mused;  "not 
alone  while  his  thoughts  are  with  vie." 

And  in  them  solitude,  and  danger,  and  the  gnawing  of 
famine,  and  the  heart-sickness  of  her  young  life,  cast  adrift  on 
the  fever  and  the  wilderness  of  the  world,  were  alike  forgotten 
when  she  leaned,  in  the  autumn  light,  beside  the  only  man 
among  his  creditors  who  had  not  uncovered  his  head  before 
the  dignity  of  calamity  in  the  porphyry  hall  of  Clarencieux. 


CHAPTEE  11. 

"magister  de  vivis  lapidibus.-" 

Under  the  great  smoke  pall  that  overhung  Darshamptoa 
there  were  riots — riots  of  the  eternal  conflict  which  has  been 
waged  since  the  Gracchan  Proletariate,  and  will  be  waged  on, 
God  knows  how  long,  through  the  cycles  of  the  future. 
Prices  were  high;  trades  were  bad;  political  ignorance  waa 
run  mad,  catching  half  truths  and  whole  wrongs  as  it  went, 
but  braying  of  them  so  that  the  sane  were  fain  to  stop  their 
ears  in  the  same  blunder  as  the  burrowing  ostrich  makes. 
Workers  had  struck  almost  to  a  man;  masters  would  not  or 
could  not  yield;  there  were  misery,  error,  wild  justice,  blind 
injustice,  crippled  creeds  groping  in  twilight,  wrong  codes 
hunger-sharpened,  right  premises  and  wrong  deductions,  the 
ir/noratio  elenchi  of  individual  suffering,  that  thought  itself  an 
injured  world,  the  passion  of  starving  lives  that  persuaded 
themselves  want  of  bread  was  resistless  logic;  all  the  eternal 
antagonisms  of  Labor  and  Capital  were  camped  here  as  it  were 
on  one  common  battle-ground,  with  tlie  angry  smoke  looming 
above  their  hostile  battalions. 

The  mighty  sinewed  iron-workers,  like  the  Moyen  Age 
smiths  of  Antwerp  and  Bruges,  the  pale  delicate  artisans  of 
the  loom,  wan  and  frail  as  the  flax  they  wove,  the  gaunt  giants 
of  the  blasting-furnaces,  and  the  sickly  weavers  of  fine  linens, 
the  men  poisoned  with  stifling  air,  the  men  scorched  with 
foundry-flames,  the  men  dying  of  steel-dust  in  their  lungs,  the 
men  livid  with  phosphorus-flames  inhaled  to  get  daily  bread, 
the  men  who  died  like  so  many  shoals  of  netted  herrings,  that 
the  Juggernaut  of  trade  might  roll  on — all  these  were  here,  or 
their  representatives,  men  who  were  told,  and  believed  it,  that 
it  was  the  Aristocratic  Order  which  wronged  them,  never  think- 
ing that  it  was  the  merciless  Tlior  of  Commercial  Cupidity 
which  crushed  them  under  its  sledge-hammer,  beating  gold  out 
of  their  bruised  flesh.     All   these  were  here,  filhng  the  vast 


CHAKDOS.  483 

squares  and  the  dark  streets  with  clamor  and  menace  and 
sullen  ominous  murmur — the  volcanic  lava  which  runs  be- 
'.neath  the  fair  surface  of  the  careless  world,  which  soon  or  late 
will  break  from  bondage  and  overflow  it — to  fertilize  or  to  de- 
stroy? 

To  fertilize,  if  light  be  given  them;  to  destroy,  if  darkness 
be  locked  in  on  them. 

The  thirst  for  liberty  was  in  them — the  liberty  that  the  sons 
of  men  knew  wliile  yet  the  earth  was  in  her  youth — the  liberty 
of  patkless  woods,  of  trackless  seas,  of  wild  fresh  winds,  of 
free  unfettered  life.  They  wanted  it,  though  they  had  never 
known  it.  These,  who  from  the  birth  to  the  grave  were  pent 
in  factories,  and  sheds,  and  garrets,  in  gas-glare,  and  crowded 
alleys,  and  dens  of  squalid  vice,  with  the  whirr  of  machines 
ever  on  their  ear,  and  the  dead  weight  of  smoke  ever  in  their 
breath,  wanted  life — wanted  the  sweet  west  winds  they  never 
breathed,  the  strong  ocean  air  they  never  tasted,  the  waving 
seas  of  grass  they  never  looked  on,  the  unchained  liberty  of 
boundless  moor-land  they  had  never  seen  but  in  their  dreams, 
the  human  heritage  of  freedom  that  in  all  ages  through  is 
taken  from  the  poor  in  price  for  the  scant  barren  porridge  of 
daily  sustenance.  Ah,  God  I  it  is  a  bitter  price  to  pay — a 
whole  life  given  up  for  food  enough  to  keep  alive  in  knowledge 
that  life  is  endless  pain  and  endless  deprivation! 

They  wanted  this  grand  simple  freedom  that  instinct  made 
them  pine  for,  though  its  knowledge  had  never  been  theirs  or 
their  sires';  and  their  teachers  told  them  they  needed  the  bal- 
lot-box and  the  game-laws'  repeal! 

It  is  many  centuries  since  Caius  Gracchus  called  the  Mer- 
cantile Classes  to  aid  the  people  against  the  Patricians,  and 
found  too  late  that  they  were  deadlier  oppressors  than  all  the 
Optimates;  but  the  error  still  goes  on,  and  the  Money-makers 
still  churn  it  into  gold,  as  they  churned  it  then  into  the  Asiatic 
revenues  and  the  senatorial  amulets. 

The  trades  had  struck.  They  were  wrong,  very  wrong,  in 
the  application  of  theories  and  predicates  which  had  their  root 
in  right.  But  it  were  hard  not  to  be  wrong  in  philosophies 
when  the  body  starves  on  a  pinch  of  oatmeal,  with  the  whole 
width  of  the  known  world  drawn  in  between  the  four  j)ent 
walls  of  a  factory-room  or  the  red-hot  stones  of  a  snielting- 
house.  It  is  the  law  of  necessity,  the  balance  of  economy: 
human  fuel  must  be  used  up,  that  the  nuuhine  of  the  world 
may  spin  on;  but  it  is  not  perhaps  marvelous  that  tlie  living 
fuel  is  sometimes  unreconciled  to  that  symmetrical  rule  of 
waste  and  repair,  of  consumer  and  consumed. 


484  CHANDOS. 

They  were  snlleTily  angry,  tempestuously  bitter,  these  surg- 
ing tumultuous  masses,  now  raging  like  seas  in  a  storm,  now 
more  ominously  silent,  with  the  yellow  sickly  gleam  of  the 
pale  sun  shining  through  the  reeking  fog  on  to  their  faces, 
here  so  white  and  eager  and  emaciated,  there  so  black  and 
dogged  and  bulldog-like,  here  so  gaunt  with  old  age  of  hun- 
gered patience,  there  so  terrible  with  youth  of  vicious  despera- 
tion. They  were  at  war  with  all  the  world  in  the  aching  of 
their  hearts,  in  the  dimness  of  their  insight;  at  war  even  with 
their  darling  whom  they  had  so  often  crowned,  their  hero 
whom  they  had  long  been  content  to  follow  as  hounds  follow 
their  feeder. 

They  were  riotous  and  desperate.  The  furnaces  had  long 
been  cold,  the  looms  had  long  been  idle,  the  wheels  had  long 
been  silent  throughout  their  country;  their  own  Unions  had 
been  hard  on  them,  and  there  were  dark  tales  afoot  of  what 
had  been  done  on  renegades  in  the  Unions'  name.  Their  em- 
l^loyers  would  not  yield,  and  it  was  said  that  strange  hands 
were  pouring  in  and  taking  the  work  they  had  left — taking  it 
at  peril  of  answering  with  life  and  limb  for  the  temerity. 
Tliey  were  very  bitter,  very  savage,  very  maddened,  in  the 
nauseous  fog-mist  steaming  round  them,  in  the  cold  northerly 
cutting  air,  burdened  black  with  smoke,  though  through  them 
the  chinnieys  had  so  long  been  without  warmth.  They  were 
fierce  in  their  wrath;  their  hearths  were  fireless,  their  chil- 
dren had  no  food,  their  women  were  dying  of  fever,  their  old 
people  lay  dead  by  the  score  of  famine;  their  hand  was  against 
every  man's,  and  they  clamored  even  against  their  Representa- 
tive. He  was  faithless  to  them,  he  was  untrue  to  his  pledges; 
he  feasted  in  foreign  palaces,  and  forgot  them;  he  sold  them 
for  the  sake  of  office;  he  grew  great  himself,  and  let  tiiem 
l)erish;  he  joined  the  minishy,  and  denied  -^ll  that  he  had  said 
to  them.  Thus  they  murmured,  and  yelled,  and  hooted 
against  him,  in  their  restless  misery.  .  The  love  of  a  People  is 
the  most  sublime  crown  that  can  rest  on  the  brow  of  any 
man;  but  the  love  of  a  Mob  is  a  mongrel  that  fawns  and 
slavers  one  moment  to  rend  and  tear  the  next,  sycophant  whilst 
bones  are  tossed  to  it,  savage  when  once  not  surfeited. 

They  loved  him  with  a  bold,  rough  love,  that  was  a  million- 
folil  truer  than  his  own  heart  ever  had  been;  they  were  proud 
of  him;  they  would  have  died  for  him;  they  believed  in  him; 
but,  irritated  against  him,  they  were  capable  of  killing  their 
god,  and  weeping  over  it,  when  shattered,  like  Africans.  Im- 
2)recations  even  on  him  were  hurled  at  intervals  through  the 
city,  while  the  crash  of  falling  slates,  of  shivered  glass,  of 


CHANDOS.  485 

flung  stones,  of  leveled  bricks,  was  added  to  the  hurricane  of 
noise,  where,  clamorous  for  bread,  or  incensed  at  the  straiiger- 
hands  hired  by  their  employers,  the  mob  wrecked  a  provision- 
shop  or  tore  down  a  machine-house.  It  was  a  pandeniouiiun 
under  the  dark  murky  atmosphere;  in  the  dull  glare  cast  from 
the  westward  flames,  where  some  had  fired  a  factory;  in  the 
midst  of  thousands  let  loose  and  made  savage  with  hunger;  in 
the  storm  of  curses  thundered  out  from  the  bared  hollow  chests 
gnawed  with  want — curses  that  blasted  even  their  idol's  name. 
He  had  sold  them  for  the  bribe  of  office;  he  had  betrayed  them 
for  the  possession  of  power;  he  had  gone  over  to  their  oppres- 
sors for  the  sake  of  his  own  aggrandizement! 

Perhaps  it  was  but  a  multitude's  reaction  and  caprice;  per- 
haps it  was  that  the  great,  weary,  fettered  heart  of  tlie  people, 
earnest  with  all  its  tyrannous  error,  and  tossed  by  demagogues 
from  lie  to  lie,  vaguely  felt  that  its  own  living,  aching  human- 
ity was  but  used  as  a  stepping-stone  for  ambition — vaguely 
felt  that  what  it  trusted  was  not  true!  Be  it  which  it  would, 
they  upbraided  and  menaced  and  cursed  him.  He  was  theirs, 
and  he  coalesced  with  the  nobles;  he  was  theirs,  and  he  went 
to  banquet  in  palaces;  he  was  theirs,  and  he  was  betraying 
them  to  sit  in  the  Cabinet  Council  and  to  wear  the  gewgaws 
of  honors! 

The  murmur  and  the  threat  rose  louder  and  louder,  stretched 
wider  and  wider.  "When  the  tempest  was  at  its  height,  into 
the  surging  waves  of  the  stormy  human  sea  Trevenna  rode 
leisurely  down. 

Staying  at  the  country-seat  of  a  millionaire  some  ten  miles 
away,  whither  rumors  came  with  every  hour  of  the  Darshamp- 
ton  riots,  he  had  heard  how  his  subjects  had  mutinied  against 
him — heard  as  he  was  shooting  over  a  phc-asant-cover  that  had 
been  specially  reserved  for  him,  with  sundry  other  good  shots 
of  the  nobility  of  rank  and  the  princes  of  the  plutocracy.  He 
had  given  his  gun  to  a  loader,  without  a  second's  hesitation^  > 
and  ordered  a  horse  to  be  saddled.  His  friends  had  crowded 
round  him,  and  sought  to  dissuade  him;  he  had  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  "  They  curse  me  behind  my  back;  let's  see  what 
they'll  dare  say  to  my  face."  There  was  no  bravado  in  it; 
but  there  was  the  cool  audacity,  the  dauntless  zest  in  peril, 
which  made  hiin,  despite  all  his  self-love  and  caution,  bold  in 
a  fray  as  a  mastill;  his  teeth  clinched,  his  hands  gripped  a  rid- 
ing-switch with  a  meaning  force:  the  lion-tamer  had  no 
thought  of  leaving  his  lion-wheli^s  to  riot  unchecked;  and  he 
rode  now  into  Darshampton,  with  the  gentlemen  who  were  his 


486  ""  CHANDOS. 

hosts  and  fellow-guests  about  him  like  a  cohue  of  courtiers 
round  a  king. 

'*  It  is  very  unwise  to  risk  it/'  whispered  one  of  them. 
"  They  are  at  wild  work,  and  your  life  is  of  national  value. " 

Trevenna  laughed,  and  bowed  his  thanks  for  the  compli- 
ment. 

"  Nobody's  life's  of  value,  my  dear  lord:  there  are  always 
plenty  to  fill  the  vacancies.  There  aren't  two  people  whose 
death  would  lower  the  Consols  for  two  days.  To  affect  the 
money-market  is  the  acme  of  greatness:  I'm  afraid  the  ex- 
changes would  scarce  stay  twelve  hours  below  par  for  me  yet." 

i\nd  he  rode  leisurely  down,  as  he  would  take  his  morning 
canter  along  the  park,  into  that  sea  of  turbulent,  hooting, 
swaying,  sullen,  fog-soaked  human  life  that,  for  the  first  mo- 
ment since  his  clarion- words  had  challenged  Darshampton, 
were  angered  against  him  and  upbraiding  him  as  a  renegade. 
There  was  laughter  in  his  eyes  as  they  glanced  over  the  heav- 
ing mass.  To  his  worldly  wisdom  and  bright  sagacity  there 
was  an  irresistible  comedy  in  this  passionate,  raving,  undoubt- 
ing  sincerity  of  a  hungry  multitude;  there  was  an  inexpressi- 
ble ridicule  for  him  in  these  poor  purblind  tools  that  rushed 
with  such  ardor  to  do  his  work  for  him,  thinking  all  the  while 
they  were  doing  their  own — never  knowing  that  they  but  tun- 
neled the  way,  or  threw  the  bridge,  by  which  he  would  pass  to 
his  ambitions,  while  they  would  lie  gasping,  kicked  aside  and 
unknown.  To  his  shrewd  common  sense  there  was  something 
unutterably  droll  in  the  sight  of  men  in  love  with  an  idea, 
amorous  of  a  principle,  sincere  in  anything  except  self-love; 
there  was  something  unutterably  ludicrous  in  the  notion  of 
men  who  starved  for  lack  of  a  crust  crazing  their  heads  about 
the  world's  government.  Trevenna  was  a  democrat,  because 
he  hated  everything  above  him,  delighted  to  lead,  and  held  a 
bitter  grudge  against  the  pestilential  tyranny  of  class;  but  at 
heart  he  cared  not  a  button  more  for  the  people  than  the 
most  supercilious  of  aristocrats,  and,  had  he  been  given  a 
supreme  power,  would  have  been  as  strong  a  tyrant  in  his  own 
way  as  ever  made  a  nation  the  mill-horse  to  grind  for  his  treas- 
uries and  fill  his  granaries.  He  had  a  thorough,  manly,  pas- 
sionate contempt  for  the  differences  of  rank;  but  all  the  same 
his  one  motive  was  simply  to  get  rank  for  himself,  and  such  a 
■sentimentality  (as  he  would  have  called  it)  as  pity  for  the 
suffering  of  multitudes  could  never  enter  into  the  strong, 
practical  astuteness  of  his  sagacious  temper. 

But  bold  he  was,  bold  as  a  lion,  and  more  pohtic  even  than 
Ttjold:  so  he  rode  now  down  into  the  close-wedged  ranks  of  the 


CHANDOS.  487 

crowds,  into  the  sulphurous  heat  from  the  distant  flames,  into 
the  clamor  and  the  ujjroar  and  the  storm  of  rage,  till  his  horse 
could  push  way  no  more,  and  he  faced  the  whole  front  of  those 
who  were  clamorous  against  him,  with  the  dull  red  light  shin- 
ing full  on  the  keen  brave  blue  of  his  eyes. 

They  were  amazed  to  see  his  apparition  rise  there  so  sud- 
denly out  of  the  cloud  of  smoke  and  fog:  he  was  their  idol, 
moreover,  though  they  had  cursed  him  when  they  had  no 
bread,  as  men  beat  the  god  Pan  when  he  sent  them  no  game 
for  the  hunting;  and  a  silence  fell  for  a  moment  on  them:  in 
it  he  spoke: 

"  So,  fellows,  you  are  damning  me,  they  say.  Tell  me  my 
faults  to  my  face,  then!^' 

There  was  the  familiar,  half-brusque,  half-bantering  tone 
that  was  so  popular  with  the  throngs  he  challenged;  but  be' 
neath  that  there  was  something  of  the  grand  insolence  of  Scip- 
io  ^milianus — "  Surely  you  do  not  think  I  shall  fear  those 
free  whom  I  sent  in  chains  to  the  slave-market!" 

"You  sold  us  for  office!'^  "You  have  broken  your 
pledges!"  "  You  have  been  false  to  your  promises!"  "You 
have  abandoned  Reform!"  "You  have  been  bribed  by 
courts!"  "  You  have  recanted  your  creeds!"  "  You  have 
joined  the  aristocracy!"  "  You  have  feasted  in  palaces!" 
"  You  have  turned  traitor!"  "  You  only  seek  your  own  dig- 
nities, and  leave  ns  to  starve!"  Sullen,  hoarse,  savage  with 
uncouth  oaths,  yelled  out  in  the  northern  accent,  the  charges 
were  hurled  against  him.  The  multitude  were  waking,  in 
their  irritation,  to  the  truth,  and  vaguely  feeling  their  way  to 
it — vaguely  feeling  that  they  were  only  used  by  the  idol  whom 
they  had  hugged,  the  belief  they  had  created  and  could  de- 
throne. 

He  heard  them  quite  patiently,  his  bold,  frank  eyes  resting 
on  them  with  a  certain  insolent  amusement  that  lashed  them 
like  cords:  it  was  the  amusement  of  the  lion-tamer  who  lets 
his  mutinous  cubs  fret  and  fume  beneath  his  gaze,  knowing 
that  a  crack  of  his  whip  will  break  them  into  obedience. 

He  laughed  a  little. 

"  You  rebuke  me  for  taking  office?  Why  did  you  re-elect 
me  after  my  acceptance  of  it,  then?" 

The  mob,  indignant  to  have  their  own  inconsistency  and 
mutal)ility  brought  in  their  teeth  against  them,  broke  out  into 
tenfold  uproar;  shrieks,  curses,  yells,  hooting,  menaces, 
crossed  each  other  in  horrible  tumult;  a  shower  of  stones 
was  hurled  through  the  darkened  air,  a  tliousand  hands  struck 
out  with  massive  iron  weapons  or  cleft  the  mist  with  flaming 


488  CHANDOS. 

fire-brands.  His  horse  reared  and  fretted,  while  the  masses 
of  half-naked  figures  were  jammed  and  crushed  against  its 
flanks;  a  thousand  arms  were  stretched  out,  brawny  and 
terrible  in  their  threats,  ten  thousand  roices  thundered  im- 
precations, hungry  savage  eyes  glared  on  him  like  wild  beasts', 
hot  breath  panted  on  him  from  mouths  foul  with  curses  and 
livid  with  famine.  Trevenna  sat  firm  as  a  rock,  with  the 
fresh,  sanguine  color  in  his  face  unblenched,  and  his  eyes 
watching  the  riot  as  though  it  were  an  opera  ballet.  Had 
Trevenna  been  Napoleon  he  would  have  won  at  Waterloo  ere 
Blucher  could  turn  the  day,  or  else  would  have  died  with  the 
Old  Guard. 

The  missiles  of  iron,  and  stone,  and  lead,  and  wood,  and 
slate  flew  about  him,  hissing  and  roaring  through  the  fog;  his 
horse  plunged  nervously,  but  he  never  swerved  in  his  saddle, 
never  moved  his  head*^  to  avoid  the  blows  that  with  every 
second  rained  at  him,  as  the  angered  worshipers  pelted  their 
god  because  their  bodies  were  fasting.  At  last,  a  flint,  sharp, 
jagged,  heavy,  struck  him,  cutting  through  his  clothes  and 
wounding  him  in  the  shoulder;  the  blood  poured  out  down 
his  arm. 

With  a  careless  glance  at  it  he  thrust  his  hand  into  the 
breast  of  his  coat,  took  out  his  cigar-case,  struck  a  fusee,  and 
began  to  smoke — smoke,  as  calmly  and  with  as  much  indiffer- 
ence as  if  he  were  on  the  couch  of  a  smoking-room. 

The  crowds  fell  back,  the  thirsty,  menacing  eyes  stared  va- 
cantly at  him,  the  yells  dropped  down  into  a  low,  unwilling, 
sullen  muttering  of  wonder  and  admiration;  the  cool  bravery, 
the  calm  sang-froid,  of  the  action  struck  a  chord  never  dumb 
in  the  English  heart;  they  had  pelted  their  god,  and,  lo!  he 
was  but  the  greater  for  it.  They  loved  him  once  more  with 
all  a  people's  swift,  passionate,  volatile  repentance;  they  broke 
out  into  riotous  cheering,  they  tossed  his  name  upward  to  the 
murky  skies,  with  all  the  old  faith  and  honor.  Without 
speaking  a  word,  he  had  conquered. 

*'  That  was  like  the  Clarencieux  blood!"  thought  Trevenna 
of  his  own  coolness,  with  a  smile.  Then,  sitting  there  in  his 
saddle,  he  spoke — spoke  witli  all  his  skill  and  all  his  elo- 
quence, rating  them  soundly  like  a  whipper-in  rating  his 
hounds,  till  the  great  masses  hung  their  heads  penitent  and 
ashamed  before  him,  yet  speaking  so  that  they  loved  him  more 
furiously  than  they  had  over  done,  and  making  them,  to  a 
man,  believe  that  all  he  took,  all  he  did,  all  he  said,  all  he 
projected,  were  only  with  one  view — their  service.  And  on 
the  morrow  the  whole  nation  was  full  of  adoring  applause  for 


CHANDOS.  489 

the  self-devotion  and  the  courage  and  the  serenity  with  which 
a  Cabinet  Minister  had  risked  his  h'fe  to  quell  the  northern 
riots,  and  to  lead  the  people  back  to  conciliation  and  to  quiet- 
ness with  the  charm  of  his  eloquence  and  the  spell  of  his 
personal  daring. 

"  Magister  de  Vivis  Lapidibus  "  was  the  title  given  in  the 
Gothic  age  to  the  sculptors  of  the  Gothic  fanes.  Trevenna 
might  have  borne  it:  it  was  out  of  the  living  stones  of  other 
men's  lives  that  he  carved  the  superstructure  of  his  envied  tri- 
umphs. It  is  only  to  those  who  have  this  supreme  art  that 
success  comes. 


CHAPTER  III. 

*' TO  TELL  OF  THE   SPRING-TIDE   PAST." 

It  was  the  blossoming-time  of  the  early  year  in  Venice, 
with  the  glow  on  the  variegated  marbles,  and  the  balmy 
breezes  stirring  calm  lagunes,  and  the  scent  of  a  myriad  of 
spring-born  flowers  filling  the  air  with  their  fragrance  from 
the  green-wreathed  ruins  of  arches  and  the  deep  embayments 
of  pillared  casements.  The  world  was  waking  after  winter, 
and  the  joy  of  its  renewed  life  laughed  in  every  smile  of  color, 
and  crowned  the  earth  with  a  diadem  of  leaf  and  of  bud  like  a 
young  Bacchus  rousing  from  sleep  to  his  revels. 

*'  How  its  youth  renews!"  said  Chandos  to  his  own 
thoughts;  "  and  we  only  know  the  value  of  ours  when  its 
beauty  has  faded  forever!" 

"  L'artiste  est  un  dieu  tonibo  qui  se  souvient  du  temps  oil  il 
creait  un  monde."  The  memories  of  his  perished  world  wore 
with  him — the  world  in  which  his  word  had  been  as  the  thyr- 
sus of  Dionysus,  a  wand  beneath  whose  touch  all  the  earth 
laughed  round  him  into  fragrance.  He  had  resisted  the  man- 
dragora-steeped  desjiair  in  which  the  great  lives  of  liyron  and 
De  Quincey  quenched  their  pain  and  ebbed  away;  he  had 
taken  the  broken  wreck  of  his  peace  boldly  and  calmly,  and 
had  sustained  himself,  sustained  his  courage,  by  desires  loftier 
than  happiness,  by  the  treasures  of  intellect,  by  the  consola- 
tions of  freedom.  He  had  borne  Avith  the  desolation  of  life 
for  the  sake  of  his  manhood  until  it  had  ceased  to  be  wholly 
desolate,  because  filled  with  the  dignity  of  a  high  and  a  i)uro 
hibor.  He  had  done  this,  and  done  it  so  that  no  Ciceronian 
lament  for  exile  ever  was  heard  to  pass  his  lips — done  it  so 
that  through  it  there  had  come  to  him  the  power  most  foreign 
to  the  careless  sensuousness  of  his  inborn  nature— the  power  of 


490  CHANDOS. 

gerene  and  unswerving  endurance.  He  had  suffered,  but  he 
had  never  lamented.  He  had  known  that  to  yield  to  suffering 
•was  to  debase  manliness,  and  that  resistance  and  conflict  are 
the  only  noble  weapons  with  which  adversity  can  be  worthily 
met.  He  had  been  stung,  and  bruised,  and  cheated;  he  had 
been  offered  the  bitterness  of  the  hyssop  and  vinegar  when  his 
whole  life  was  athirst  for  the  living  waters  of  loyalty  and  joy. 
Men  had  fooled  him,  betrayed  him,  forsaken  him;  but  he  had 
never  in  turn  abandoned  them,  never  reviled  the  humanity 
with  which  he  had  common  bond,  never  abjured  the  faith  and 
the  creeds  of  his  youth.  The  love  he  had  borne  men  when 
they  were  at  his  feet,  and  the  suns  of  a  cloudless  day  had  been 
shed  across  his  path,  lived  with  him  still,  now  that  he  had 
been  stabbed  deep  by  their  traitor-blades  and  had  passed 
through  the  starless  night  of  bereavement  and  of  despair. 

Yet  at  times  the  anguish  of  a  great  longing  stole  on  him; 
at  times  the  lust  of  a  great  vengeance  seized  him.  At  times 
he  would  wake  from  some  dream  of  his  youth,  some  dream 
that  had  borne  him,  for  its  hour,  back  to  the  home  he  had 
lost — borne  him  to  the  fresh  shelter  of  its  forest  leafage,  to 
the  sight  of  its  beloved  beauty,  to  the  lulling  echo  of  its 
familiar  waters;  wake,  and,  seeing  the  gray  gleam  of  some 
foreign  city  in  its  wintry  dawn  or  the  torrid,  r6ddened  sun- 
glow  of  some  eastern  sky  around  him,  clinch  his  teeth  like  a 
man  in  torture  to  keep  down  the  great,  tearless  sob  that  shook 
him  as  the  wind  shakes  reeds.  At  times  he  would  break  from 
the  noble  and  tranquil  repose  of  pliilosophy,  from  the  treas- 
ures of  intellectual  creation,  from  the  calm  of  deep  and  schol- 
arly ambition  and  meditation — break  from  them  as  men  break 
from  the  stillness  of  monastic  cloisters  and  the  coldness  of 
monastic  vows,  with  an  agony  of  desire  for  the  vivid  joys  and 
the  vivid  hues  that  had  died  from  his  life— with  as  passionate 
an  agony  for  the  mere  blood-thirst  of  revenge  that,  under  the 
goad  of  a  giant  wrong,  will  change  the  purest  nature  to  the 
sheer  brute  instinct  of  self-wrought  amends,  of  Mosaic  justice. 

He  had  said  that  he  knew  himself  weak;  all  men  who  know 
themselves  truly  know  tliis  of  their  natures.  He  was  doubtful 
of  his  own  duration  of  control — doubtful  that  the  lessons  of  a 
long  ordeal  might  not  be  forgotten  in  one  instant  before  the 
power  and  the  temptation  of  a  day  of  vengeance. 

He  drifted  now  through  Venice,  beneath  the  marble  walls 
and  the  casements  dark  and  narrow,  out  of  whose  twilight 
glowed  the  smile  of  the  flowers'  birtli,  with  the  water  lazily 
parting  under  his  boat's  prow,  and  the  green  of  spring-time 
foliage  hanging  over  the  jasper  ledges.     His  heart  was  with 


CHANDOS.  491 

spring-times  that  were  past,  when  there  had  been  no  shadow 
on  the  earth  for  him,  and  the  kiss  of  a  woman's  lips  had  made 
his  idle  golden  paradise.  "  Love  I"  he  thought,  with  a 
momentary  regret  that  was  in  itself  almost  a  passion.  "It 
can  live  no  more  in  my  life;  it  is  dead  with  all  the  rest."  Yet 
now — for  the  instant  at  least — he  would  have  given  the  king- 
ship of  half  the  world,  had  he  owned  it,  to  steep  himself  once 
more  in  the  sweet,  senseless  delirium;  he  could  have  mur- 
mured, with  Mirabeau  when  he  looked  back  in  his  dungeons 
to  the  hours  of  his  love,  "  Jouissance!  jouissance!  que  de  vies 
je  donnerais  pour  toi!" 

"  If  I  returned  to  her?"  he  mused,  in  a  doubt,  in  a  desire, 
that  had  long  haunted  him,  mingled  with  an  anxiety  that  was 
almost  remorse.  "  And  yet — a  child's  love;  it  may  be  forgot- 
ten ere  this.  Besides,  God.  knows  her  fate  now;  and,  whatever 
it  may  be,  I  have  no  right  to  sacrifice  her  life  to  mine." 

But  there,  in  the  sunset  radiance,  in  the  lulling  of  the 
water's  murmur,  in  the  heavy  fragrance  of  the  many  blos- 
soms, the  thoughts  of  his  youth  were  with  him,  and  they 
wandered  alone  to  Castalia.  He  had  not  known  it  whilst  he 
had  been  with  her,  but  in  absence  the  desire  of  his  heart  had 
gone  to  her  in  what  was  scarce  less  than  love.  He  had  thrust 
it  from  him,  because  on  her  the  world  would  have  visited  that 
love  as  dishonor. 

As  he  passed  through  the  charmed  peace  of  the  silent  city 
in  the  first  hour  of  his  arrival  there,  all  odorous  and  rich  in 
the  hues  of  the  flowers'  spring-tide  luxuriance,  the  vessel 
floated  down  the  noiseless  highway  into  a  sequestered,  deso- 
late street,  whose  dark  walls  faced  each  other  with  all  life,  all 
movement  banished,  only  with  the  intense  glow  of  the  sun  on 
its  many-colored  stones,  and  the  wreathing  of  stone-clinging 
leafage  filling  the  gaps  of  its  broken  sculptures.  It  was  that 
in  which,  a  few  years  before,  the  young  patriots  of  Venice  had 
given  him  the  homage  of  their  song  of  liberty.  It  was  lonely, 
decayed,  abandoned,  with  no  sound  in  it  but  the  endless  lap- 
ping of  the  water  on  its  sea-stairs;  but  it  was  grand,  despite 
that,  with  its  mute  records  of  tlie  glory  that  once  had  reigned 
there,  its  imperishable  memories  of  things  forever  perished. 

The  keel  grated  on  the  marble  steps,  worn  and  glistening 
with  the  splash  of  the  water-spray;  he  landed,  and  passed  up 
them  to  the  place  where  he  had  once  made  his  dwelling  in 
Venice.  The  arc  of  a  vast  archway  spanned  the  slope  of  the 
stairs,  shutting  out  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  leaving  only  a 
flickering  ray  of  the  dayliglit's  brilliance  to  lie  across  the  inter- 
spaces of  dense  shadow  that  were  G^st  downward  from  the 


492  CHANDOS. 

mighty  structure  and  the  massive  carvings,  rich  in  jasper, 
aud  porphyry,  and  agate,  which  loomed  in  the  height  above. 
In  the  depth  of  the  gloom,  midway  on  the  stone  flight,  a  rest- 
ing figure  leaned  in  the  passive,  motionless  repose  of  fatigue 
or  of  exhaustion — a  form  that  would  have  arrested  an  artii-t's 
glance  in  long-lingering  admiration,  that  was  Venetian  in  its 
perfect  grace,  Titian-like  in  its  perfect  color,  that  was  set  as 
a  brilliant  painting  in  an  ebony  framework  in  that  cavernous 
gloom  of  the  arch,  in  exquisite  harmony  yet  in  exquisite  con- 
trast with  the  antique  and  melancholy  majesty  of  the  forsaken 
palace-way.  The  head  was  drooped  forward;  but  there  was 
no  sleep  in  the  eyes  that  gazed  wearily  down  on  the  ebb  aud 
flow  of  the  gliding  canal;  the  lids  were  heavily  weighted,  but 
it  was  not  with  slumber,  but  with  an  unshed  mist  of  tears;  the 
lips  were  slightly  parted,  as  with  j^ain,  but  there  w^as  on  them 
a  proud  fixity  of  resolve;  the  hands  leaned  on  the  twisted 
osier  handle  of  a  basket,  from  which  spring  flowers  fell  un- 
heeded in  coils  and  masses  of  blossom  down  about  her  on  to 
the  worn  stone.  The  single  flash  of  sunlight  that  found  en. 
trance  beneath  the  marbles  fell,  intense  and  concentered  in  its 
heat  and  its  glow,  alone  on  the  scattered  foliage  and  on  the 
golden  gleam  of  her  uncovered  hair.  The  attitude,  the  flower- 
fragrance,  the  Southern  languor  of  repose,  were  the  same  as 
they  had  been  under  the  beech-shadows  of  Tuscany;  but  the 
dreaming  peace  of  childhood  was  banished  forever. 

He  saw  her  as,  coming  out  of  the  splendor  of  the  day,  he 
glanced,  half  blinded,  up  the  twilight  of  the  palace-steps;  and 
her  name  left  his  lips  with  a  cry — "  Castalial"  She  looked 
up  with  a  look  in  her  eyes  that  smote  him  with  a  jmug  keen 
and  heavy  as  a  murderer's  remorse,  and,  starting  from  her 
musing  rest,  sprung  toward  him  with  all  the  wealth  of  the 
spring  buds  and  blossoms  scattered  into  the  gliding  darkness 
of  the  water;  then — like  a  shot  fawn — she  fell  downward  at 
his  feet,  the  shower  of  her  glistening  tresses  trailing  on  the  sea- 
wet  marbles  of  the  stair. 

If  he  had  never  loved  her,  he  loved  her  then.  He  lifted 
her,  senseless  to  his  touch,  into  his  arms,  where  she  had  rested 
through  the  tumult  of  the  storm;  he  murmured  to  her  a 
thousand  names  that  had  never  been  on  his  utterance  since  the 
days  of  his  youtii,  when  there  was  no  toy  so  fair  to  him  as  the 
fairness  of  woman;  he  swept  the  burnished  weight  of  her  haii- 
back  from  the  face  from  which  he  had  exiled  the  smile  of  its 
childhood,  the  light  of  its  peace.  For  the  moment  he  was 
once  more  young;  for  the  moment  time  and  calamity,  and  Iho 
bitterness  of  disillusion,  and  the  coldness  of  dead  hopes  and 


CHAKDOS.  493 

dead  desires,  were  as  though  they  had  never  been;  for  the  m©- 
ment  passion  once  again  transfigured  all  existence,  and  blinded 
him  with  its  warm  golden  glow,  so  sweet  because  so  transient, 
so  strong  in  power  and  so  vain  in  reason.  The  cost  of  it  is 
oftentimes  deadly  and  far-reaching;  but  its  lotus-dream  of 
forgetfulness  is  worth  it  while  it  lasts. 

The  shock  of  Joy  had  stunned  her;  she  lay  unconscious  in 
his  embrace.  No  living  thing  was  near  them  in  the  darkness 
of  the  old  sea-palace;  there  was  only  the  sound  of  the  retreat- 
ing oars  beating  out  a  soft,  sad,  distant  music;  there  was  only 
the  one  broad  beam  of  vivid  light  that  flushed  the  tint  of  the 
fallen  carnation-buds  to  scarlet,  and  burned  on  the  loosened 
splendor  of  her  hair  that  swept  across  his  breast.  He  stooped 
his  head  over  her,  gazing  on  her  with  a  love  that  had  silently 
grown,  born  in  absence  and  from  pity,  and  that  sprung  ujt 
like  a  tropic  flower  which  springs  to  its  height  in  one  short 
Eastern  night,  with  the  sudden  sight  of  her  young  beauty. 

"  Castalia! — my  child,  my  love!^'  he  murmured,  as  his  head 
sunk,  and  his  lips  touched  her  own,  as  in  the  sunset  haze  ot' 
the  Tuscan  night,  when  for  the  first  time  the  charm  of  her 
childhood  took  for  him  a  woman's  deeper  jDOvver.  As  though 
his  kiss  wakened  her  dull  senses  and  called  back  the  mind 
from  its  trance,  her  heart,. where  it  beat  on  his  own,  throbbed 
faster;  the  blue-black  luster  of  her  eyes  opened  wide  and 
startled,  as  they  had  opened  when  he  had  roused  her  from  her 
sleep  in  the  storm;  for  an  instant  she  lay  passive  in  his  arms, 
gazing  upward  at  him  with  the  glory  of  a  joy,  bewildered  as  a 
dream,  dawning,  as  the  day  dawns,  on  her  face. 

"  Oh,  God,  be  pitiful!     Let  me  never  wake." 

The  words  were  murmured,  breathless,  in  her  Tuscan 
tongue;  she  thought  that  she  was  dreaming.  Such  dreams 
so  often  had  mocked  her. 

He  drew  her  closer  to  his  bosom. 

'*  Castalia,  look  at  me,  hear  me.  I  am  with  you.  Have 
jrou  loved  me  so  well,  then?" 

At  the  sound  of  his  voice  a  flush  like  the  scarlet  heat  of  the 
fallen  carnation-leaves  glowed  in  her  cheek;  her  eyes  looked 
upward  to  him,  but  half  conscious  still. 

"At  last!  at  last!" 

The  murmur  broke  from  her,  stilled  with  the  rush  of  tears; 
she  quivered  from  his  ombnice,  and  crouched  down  at  his 
feefc,  till  her  face  was  veiled  from  iiim.  Tlie  knowledge  of 
love  was  on  her,  and  it  stilled  and  filled  with  the  dread  oL'  his 
scorn  th'e  anguish  of  joy  with  which  her  heart  seemed  break 
ing  as  a  nightingale's  breaks  with  the  rapture  of  song. 


494  '  CHANDOS. 

He  stooped  to  her,  and  his  hand  touched  her  with  a  gentle- 
ness that  thrilled  her  with  its  caress  like  fire. 

"  Castalia,  have  you  loved  me  despite  my  desertion-— 
through  all  my  oruelty?" 

Her  brow  drooped  still,  till  the  bright  masses  of  her  hair 
bathed  his  feet. 

"  Eccellenza!  I  have  only  prayed  God  to  let  me  see  your 
face  and  die. ' ' 

The  words  were  so  low  they  barely  stirred  the  air,  yet  he 
heard  them;  and  his  eyes  grew  dim:  it  was  long  since  any  had 
given  him  love;  it  had  infinite  sweetness  for  him.  He  stood 
silent  and  motionless  a  moment,  looking  down  on  her  where 
she  knelt  with  the  Venetian  light  shed  like  an  aureole  about 
her.  Then  the  old  dominion,  the  reckless  sovereignty  of  pas- 
sion vanquished  him;  he  drew  her  once  more  into  his  arms, 
he  lifted  again  her  bowed  head,  that  sunk  downward  like  i% 
broken  flower  on  the  chill  dark  marble  of  the  water-stairs;  the 
gaze  that  had  never,  sleeping  or  waking,  been  absent  from  her 
memory,  met  hers  with  a  look  that  made  her  senses  sick  and 
faint  with  the  paradise  of  joy  that  doubted  its  own  being. 

"  Castalia,  we  are  both  alone;  let  us  be  the  world  to  one 
another." 

She  lay  passive  in  his  hold;  her  face  was  turned  upward  to 
him  with  the  radiance  of  the  sun  fallen  across  her  proud 
bright  brow;  her  lips  trembled;  she  heard  him  with  a  breath- 
less incredulity,  a  breathless  ecstasy. 

"  Oh,  my  lord,  you  mock  me!*'  she  murmured,  while  her 
voice  was  faint.     "  Love!  your  love! — for  me!" 

It  seemed  to  her  the  gift  of  so  divine  a  world,  the  treasury  of 
so  vast  a  sovereignty,  the  benediction  of  so  god-like  a  mercy! 
She  could  not  think  that  it  could  be  her  own.  She  could  not 
hold  a  life-time  of  service  and  of  sacrifice  title  sufficient  for  it. 

He  drew  her  closer  and  closer  to  his  breast,  and,  for  all 
answer,  spent  his  kisses  on  her  lips. 

*'  Do  you  doubt  7ioio  9'* 

With  the  touch  of  his  caresses  the  consciousness  alike  of  the 
passion  she  wakened  and  the  passion  she  cherished  stole  on 
her;  the  barrier  between  them,  that  her  veneration  for  him 
had  raised  by  the  deep  humility  of  its  own  worship,  seemed  to 
fall  as  his  eyes  gazed  down  into  hers;  for  the  first  time  the 
knowledge  of  what  love  he  might  bear  her,  of  what  love. she 
might  render  him,  came  to  her  with  the  glow  of  its  warmth, 
with  the  wonder  of  its  deep  and  hushed  delight.  The  carna- 
tion flush  of  her  face  burned  deeper  in  its  soft  shame;  a  sigh 


CHANDOS.  495 

trembled  through  her,  where  she  rested  in  his  arms  as  a  himt- 
ed  bird  rests  in  its  haven  of  shelter. 

"  For  the  pity  of  God — if  I  am  dreaming,  kill  me  while  I 
dream!" 

The  words  died  in  their  prayer;  her  gaze  met  his,  heavy 
with  the  voluptuous  weight  of  new-born  thoughts,  lustrous  as 
her  own  Southern  skies  by  night — the  eyes  of  Sappho  under 
the  first  breath  of  love.  His  hand  wandered  among  the  float- 
ing gold  of  her  sun-lightened  tresses;  his  lips  sought  ever  and 
again  the  warmth  of  hers. 

"  Let  me  dream  with  you,  if  I  can!  Let  me  dream,  too, 
once  more — dream  that  you  give  me  back  my  youthl" 


CHAPTER  IV. 
"to  thine  owk  self  be  true." 

He  gazed  down  on  her,  and  wondered  how  he  could  evef 
have  left  her. 

The  flight  of  a  few  months  had  brought  her  loveliness  to  its 
perfection;  and  the  silence  of  endurance,  the  passion  of  suffer- 
ing, had  left  on  it  a  heroism  and  a  power  that  gave  tenfold 
more  beauty  to  the  luxuriance  of  its  youth,  more  intensity  to 
the  splendor  of  its  hues.  Young  though  she  was,  hers  was 
already  a  life  to  be  a  poet's  mistress,  to  comprehend  and  to 
inspire  loftiest  ambitions,  highest  efforts,  noblest  thoughts,  to 
gain  from  the  lips  of  a  man  the  words  of  Dante — 

"  Quella  clie  imparadisa  la  mia  mente, 
Ogni  basso  pensier  dal  cor  m'avulse." 

As  the  full  consciousness  of  his  presence  and  of  his  love  wak- 
ened in  her,  as  the  sense  of  his  words  and  the  truth  of  her 
dream  dawned  on  her  till  her  heart  seemed  breaking  with  its 
rapture,  she  drew  herself  from  his  embrace,  and  sunk  down 
beside  him,  her  head  bowed  upon  his  hand. 

'*  Ah,  ecccllenza!  this  is  but  your  pity?" 

The  words  were  low-breathed  as  a  sigh. 

To  her,  he  was  so  far  above  her,  far  as  the  stars  in  their 
divine  majesty;  to  her  it  seemed  that  she  could  have  nothing 
to  raise  her  into  fitness  with  his  life.  For  all  answer  he  lifted 
her  head  upward  as  he  stooped  over  her. 

"  Only  pity?     Look  in  my  eyes,  and  see!" 

Once  before  he  had  said  the  last  words  to  one  whom  they 
had  no  power  to  stir,  whose  heart  was  chill  as  ice  against  his 
own.  Now  the  whole  fervor  of  a  Southern  natin-o  thrilled  in 
answer  to  them.     Castalia  looked  up  and  met  his  gaze;  then 


496  CHANDOS. 

the  burning  color  fliislied  her  cheek  and  her  bosom,  a  light 
Jlike  a  flash  of  sunlight  trembled  over  her  face,  her  lips  j^arted 
with  a  deep,  broken  breath.  From  his  eyes  she  had  learned 
what  her  reverence  in  its  humility  could  not  realize;  she  never 
asked,  she  never  doubted,  again  whether  he  loved  her. 

And  the  weight  and  the  wonder  of  its  joy  seemed  to  kill  ber 
with  its  glory. 

"  What  can  I  give  tliee  back,  O  liberal 
And  princely  giver,  who  hast  brought  the  gold 
And  purple  of  thine  heart?" 

her  own  heart  asked. 

"  Oh,  my  lord,  my  king!**  she  murmured,  while  her  lipi 
hesitatingly  touched  his  hand  in  the  kiss  of  a  slave's  veneration 
"  I  am  not  worthy!    A  word  from  you,  a  smile  from  you  sucK 
as  you  give  the  dogs,  were  all  /prayed  for!     AYhat  can  I  ren- 
der yon?     I  am  nameless  and  desolate!" 

Of  the  gifts  of  her  own  loveliness  she  never  thought;  she 
had  known  them  no  more  than  the  passsion-flower  knows  its 
•own  hues.     His  arms  j^ressed  her  closer  to  his  breast. 

"  You  will  give  me  yourself,  and  you  will  give  me  youth—- 
j;^ifts  more  precious  than  the  treasures  of  a  world,  Castalia! 
My  love! — all  my  youth  through  I  sought  your  likeness,  and 
never  found  you!  You  waited  to  be  the  angel  of  consolation 
\o  the  darkness  of  years,  that  were  without  a  joy  in  them  until 
you  brought  one.** 

She  lifted  her  eyes,  wistful  and  humid. 

"Ah!  you  are  not  happy'-"' 

He  smiled — a  smile  in  which  the  melancholy  of  his  fate  waa 
tinged  with  impassioned  tenderness  for  her. 

"  When  I  look  on  you,  I  am.** 

She  gave  a  swift,  low  sigh. 

*'  Oh,  my  lord!  if  I  can  make  you  so  one  hour,  I  shall 
have  lived  enough.** 

He  understood  her.  This  vivid,  intense,  devotional  love 
was  very  precious  to  him;  he  had  dreamed  of  it  in  the  ideals 
of  his  poetic  fancies;  and  it  was  doubly  sweet  now  that  it  came 
to  him  after  the  desert  waste  of  many  years,  in  which  no  smile 
had  lightened  for  him,  no  lips  touched  his  own.  Where  he 
lested  in  the  shadow  and  the  solitude  of  the  old  palace-en- 
trance, as  he  gazed  on  her  and  swept  back  the  magnificence  of 
lier  hair,  the  dead  days  revived  once  more  for  him.  Once 
more  he  lost  himself  in  the  kiaguor  and  the  warmth  and  the 
oblivion  of  passion,  as  he  murmured  to  her  a  thousand  caress- 
ing Italian  names,  and  drew  fi'om  her  the  story  of  her  wander* 


CHAKDOS.  497 

ings,  tonched  beyond  words  by  the  pathetic  simplicity  of  that 
stiarch  for  him  through  the  vastness  of  an  unknown  world. 

"  I  sought  you,  eccellenza;  yes/^  she  murmured,  while  she 
looked  up  at  bim  with  an  appealing  deprecating  prayer,  "  I 
could  not  stay  when  you  were  gone;  my  heart  was  dead,  my 
life  was  broken.  And  I  heard  them  speak  evil  against  you, 
and  the  Padre  Giulio  lifted  up  his  voice  with  them;  and  I 
would  not  wait  and  eat  the  bread  of  those  who  had  once 
touched  your  name.  For  I  heard  that  name  at  the  last,  and 
I  knew  you  then  greater  than  any  kings;  I  knew  the  book 
that  I  loved  as  your  book,  the  thoughts  I  had  treasured  as 
your  thoughts.  But,  though  I  sought  you,  it  was  not  to  seek 
your  pity,  not  to  ask  your  mercy.  I  never  meant  that  you 
should  know  that  I  was  near — if  ever  I  mec  you,  I  only  meant 
to  watch  you  from  a  distance,  to  hear  your  voice,  to  see  3^our 
face,  while  you  knew  nothing.  You  believe  me — you  believe 
i..r" 

The  terror  on  her  was  great  lest  he  should  think  that  she 
had  followed  him  to  appeal  to  his  compassion,  to  force  herself 
on  his  life.  His  eyes  were  dim,  his  voice  quivered,  as  he  an- 
Ewered  her — 

"  lielieve  it?  Yes!  each  word  that  your  lips  say.  My  dar- 
Img,  my  darling,  what  you  have  sutfered!  and  suffered  through 
£.nd  for  me!" 

She  shuddered,  and  her  eyes  closed  a  moment  as  in  the  recol- 
lection of  some  unbearable  torture;  then  the  radiance  of  light 
came  on  her  face,  a  smile  sweet  as  the  daybreak  on  her  lips. 

*'  Eccellenza,"  she  said,  under  her  breath,  "  I  would  suffer 
a  thousand  years  of  find  for  this  one  hour." 

The  passion  of  his  kisses  staj'ed  her  lijss. 

"  Hush!  hush!  or  I  shall  love  you  too  well;  and  all  that  / 
love  I  lose.  Such  courage,  such  patience,  such  fidelity — and 
you  ask,  what  you  have  that  you  give  me?" 

*'  Those  are  nothing,"  she  said,  dreamily.  *'  The  mercy  is 
— to  let  me  render  them.  It  has  been  so  long,  oli,  God !  so 
long!  Here  in  Venice  it  was  a  little  happier.  The  people 
apeak  of  you;  they  love  you,  though  they  say  it  beneath  their 
breath,  because  of  the  tyranny.  They  said  you  would  come 
here  with  the  spring;  and  so — I  waited." 

The  words  were  simple,  spoken  with  the  tears  of  remem- 
bered anguish  heavy  on  her  lashes;  but  all  her  story  was  told 
in  them.  "  She  had  waited,"  with  the  faith  of  a  child,  tho 
passion  of  a  woman:  it  was  the  epitome  of  the  intense  volition 
fcnd  the  silent  power  of  sacrifice  that  met  in  her  nature.     It 


498  CHANDOS. 

Was  the  ideal  of  w&ich  he  had  once  vainly  dreamed;  it  moved 
him  now  to  an  emotion  keen  to  pain. 

"  Castalia,  in  my  youth  I  loved  many,  yet  my  youth  never 
had  such  love  as  yours.  What  you  have  suffered  while  1  knew 
nothing!    And  you  never  loathed  me  for  my  cruelty?*' 

''  Cruelty?  You  were  never  cruel.  You  saved  my  life;  it 
was  yours  to  take  or  to  leave,  to  command  or  to  neglect.*' 

"  But  I  left  you  to  this  loneliness,  to  this  peril!     How  have' 
you  lived,  fragile  and  friendless,  and  dowered  with  the  danger 
of  such  beauty?" 

Her  face  grew  pale.  The  past  was  terrible  to  her — a  time 
never  to  be  dwelt  on  without  a  horror  of  remembrance;  and 
«he  would  not  wound  him  by  confessing  all  she  had  endured. 

'*  It  is  over,"  she  said,  softly;  "  let  it  sleep." 

"  It  will  never  sleep  in  my  memory,"  he  murmured,  as  he 
drew  her  closer  to  his  bosom  and  called  her  color  back  with 
Jiis  caress.  "  And  now,  now  that  we  have  met,  what  does  the 
*;hought  of  my  love  bring  you?*' 

Her  eyes  dwelt  on  his  deep  and  dreamy  as  the  night,  with 
ihe  fire  of  a  tropic  nature  in  their  depths;  her  voice  was  hushed 
below  her  breath. 

*'  How  can  I  say?  I  know  now  how  possible  it  is  to  die  of 
joy;  I  feel  as  if  I  should  die  so  to-night!" 

He  drew  her  nearer  still  into  his  embrace.  The  words  sent 
ft  chill  through  him;  all  that  his  heart  had  clung  to  had  been 
taken,  soon  or  late. 

"  God  forbid !  Live  to  bless  me,  Castalia;  live  to  be  my  love, 
my  consoler,  my  mistress,  my  wife!" 

The  last  word  left  his  lips  in  unconsidered  impulse.  She  was 
his  so  utterly,  his  to  cherish  or  destroy,  to  honor  or  dishonor, 
to  lead  as  he  chose,  to  make  what  he  would — the  absolute  de- 
fenselessiiess  of  her  life,  the  absolute  abandonment  of  her 
trust,  forbade  him  to  seek  from  her  aught  that  others  would 
have  held  her  sacrifice. 

Where  she  rested  in  his  arms,  she  trembled  from  head  to 
foot,  the  liquid  darkness  of  her  eyes  grew  burning  with  the 
bewildered  vision  of  a  future  that  passed  all  which  her  thought 
had  ever  reached;  her  senses  seemed  blind  and  faint;  she  felt 
as  though  angel  hands  had  been  laid  on  her  and  had  raised 
her  upward  into  the  light  of  eternal  suns. 

*'  No,  no!"  she  murmured,  while  her  gaze  dwelt  on  hj&  with 
all  the  humility  and  all  the  idolatry  that  were  in  hor;  **  I  have 
no  title!  I  was  born  of  shame,  they  say;  I  am  without  name, 
or  kin,  or  worthiness.  I  am  yours  to  neglect,  to  smilo  upon, 
to  for»ake,  to  command — as  you  will!    Let  me  be  as  your 


CSANDOS."  499 

slave;  let  me  follow  and  serve  and  obpy  you  as  spaniels  may; 
let  me  live  in  your  sight,  and  have  honor  enough  in  one  word, 
in  one  touch — that  is  all  that  /  am  meet  for  from  you!" 

The  words  moved  him  as  no  words  that  had  claimed  her 
justice  or  his  tenderness  would  ever  have  done — words  that 
had  the  sublime  self-oblivion  auQ  self-devotion  of  Heloise. 

"  IS'ot  so!  You  were  worth  empires  if  I  had  them  in  my 
gift.  Castalia,  there  is  but  one  passion  possible  between  us 
now.  The  world,  as  its  bigotry  stands,  would  call  that  passion 
your  shame  unless  my  name  were  bestowed  with  it — unless 
the  marriage-benediction  were  on  you.  I  have  little  left  to 
give;  but  such  as  I  have  shall  be  yours.*' 

The  scarlet  flush  deepened  over  her  bosom;  her  head 
drooped  till  her  lips  touched  his  hand  again  in  their  reverent 
idss;  her  voice  was  broken  and  lost  in  tears. 

'*  Ah,  God!  what  can  I  say  to  you?  how  can  my  life  repay 

you?    You  gave  me  all — gave  me  the  world — when  you  onca 

gave  me  your  love!'* 

******* 

Past  the  darkened  arch  of  the  entrance  a  gondola  floated 
slowly  down  the  solitary  and  neglected  street — a  vessel  richly 
arrayed,  and  piled  in  the  prow  with  a  fragrant  load  of  gathered 
violets  and  red  carnation-buds.  Lying  back  in  it  was  a  form^ 
delicate  and  patrician,  covered  with  costly  laces  and  velvets; 
her  cheek  rested  on  her  hand;  her  hand  glittered  with  dia- 
monds. She  looked  up  languidly  as  the  boat  dropped  past  the 
high  and  massive  sculpture  of  the  mighty  archway.  Tho 
gloom  was  deep  as  twilight  beneath  its  arc,  yet  her  eyes  pierced 
it  and  caught  the  hues  of  the  fallen  flowers,  the  gleam  of  the 
golden  hair — eyes  falcon-bright,  pitiless,  and  unerring — the 
eyes  of  Heloise  de  la  Vivarol. 

"  She  has  found  him!"  she  said,  in  her  teeth.  "And  he 
loves  her.     So  it  comes  round — so  it  comes  round!" 

So  her  vengeance  came  round  to  her — her  vengeance  vowed 

in  the  years  that  were  gone.     Women  may  f orgeat  their  love, 

and  change  it;  but  there  are  few  who  ever  forget  the  oath  or 

the  desire  of  jealousy. 

*****  4<  * 

The  flitting  by  of  that  single  gondola  was  unseen  by  tiiem, 
the  noise  of  its  oars  drowned  in  the  ripple  of  the  water  beneath 
the  wide  slope  of  the  stairs.  He  surrendered  himself  once 
more  to  the  forgetfulness  a::d  tbe  sweetness  of  passion;  and 
her  life  seemed  to  rest  in  a  trance  divine  as  that  which  comes 
to  the  lotus-eaters.  The  darkness  of  the  vast  stone  pile  in 
closed  them  in  its  shadow  and  its  solitude;  the  red  gold  of  the 

8— Sd  hall. 


600  CHANDOS. 

fastdecliaing  sun  only  stole  in  a  single  ray  across  the  Inster 
of  her  eyes  as  they  looked  up  to  his.  The  heavy  fragrance  of 
the  fallen  flowers  weighted  the  air;  the  delicious  monotone  of 
the  water's  ebb  and  flow  below  against  the  marble  alone  stirred 
the  stillness.  Time  passed  on;  neither  counted  its  flight. 
The  sun  set,  the  odorous  night  fell;  it  seemed  to  her  at  once 
brief  as  a  moment,  long  as  a  life-time,  since  she  had  found  him 
whom  she  had  grown  to  hold  her  sovereign  and  her  religion. 

Through  the  gloom,  as  the  depth  of  night  fell,  a  voice  came 
from  above  them. 

*'  Castalia,  art  thou  not  homer'* 

Chandos  started:  he  knew  the  voice  again — the  voice  of  the 
blind  Hebrew. 

"  Who  is  that?"  he  said,  swiftly.  "  "Who  calls  you  by  your 
name?' ' 

*'  Ah!  I  had  forgotten  himi"  she  murmured,  with  that  soft 
contrition  with  which  she  had  once  pleaded  her  forgetfulness 
of  the  Tuscan  priest.  "  I  was  wrong  to  say  I  was  wholly 
friendless.  He  has  been  very  good.  He  is  a  Jew,  old  and 
blind,  and  poor;  but  he  led  me  here,  and  he  brought  me  to 
some  women  of  his  nation,  who  have  been  gentle  to  me,  b&« 
cause  they  knew  me  to  be  homeless  and  motherless. " 

As  she  spoke,  the  old  man  came  slowly  down  the  steps,  feel- 
ing his  way  with  that  wavering  uncertain  movement  of  his 
hands  that  was  in  so  pathetic  a  contrast  with  the  dignity  of 
his  austere  and  venerable  age.  A  gleam  of  the  white  luminous 
Venetian  moon  fell  across  the  majesty  of  his  bowed  head  and 
lofty  form. 

"  Good  God!— at  last!" 

The  words  escaped  Chandos  involuntarily  as  he  rose  to  his 
feet,  facing  the  figure  of  the  Israelite.  He  had  sought  the 
lost  life  of  the  old  man  far  and  diligently  since  the  night  when 
he  had  found  him  wandering  in  the  streets — sought  him  on 
the  vague,  baseless,  shapeless  thoughts  and  the  unerring  in- 
stinct of  the  desire  for  vengeance. 

The  Jew  paused  and  listened;  his  quick  ear  apprised  him  of 
her  presence,  and  of  another  beside  hers. 

"  Castalia,  thou  art  so  late!     And  who  is  with  thee?" 

"  It  is  I!" 

At  the  sound  of  his  voice  the  Jew  started,  and  over  the 
brown  worn  sternness  of  his  face  Chandos  saw  the  look  that 
had  come  there  when  he  had  spoken  his  name  in  the  bhnd 
man's  ear. 

"  It  is  I,"  he  continued,  as  he  passed  up  the  sea-stairs,  and 
stood  beside  the  Israelite  on  the  breadth  of  the  marble  land- 


C^ilAKDOS.  501 

ing-place.  **  You  have  been  good  and  pitiful  to  a  life  that  is 
very  dear  to  me,  I  hear.  Tftke  my  deepest  gratitude  for  every 
tenderness  you  have  shoarn  her,  every  pang  you  have  striveu 
to  spare  her. " 

Over  the  old  man's  face  eif ept  the  look  of  pain  and  of  shame 
that  had  been  there  in  the  after-midnight  in  Paris — a  look 
that  hardened  instantly  into  a  rugged  iron  calm. 

"  I  have  served  her  little/'  he  said,  briefly.  "  The  maiden 
has  gained  her  own  bread  by  the  choirs  of  her  Church,  and 
the  sale  of  flowers  while  flowers  bloomed.  I  owe  her  moro 
than  she  owes  me.     And  what  is  she  to  you  ?" 

"  The  only  thing  I  love. " 

A  sigh  rose  to  the  H/jbrew's  lips.  Castalia's  life  had  been 
precious  to  him;  he  had  grown  to  listen  for  her  voice,  and 
her  step,  and  her  jsresence,  as  the  aged  listen  for  the  only  thing 
that  reminds  them  of  the  world  in  which  they  once  had  place: 
he  knew  that  she  would  be  lost  to  him  now.  But  the  rigid 
austerity  of  his  face  kept  its  reticence. 

"  Love!    And  you  left  her  to  wander  and  starve?" 

"  I  had  no  knowledge  of  her  fate.  Had  I  left  her  as  you 
think,  I  should  merit  now  your  worst  reproach,  your  worse 
rebuke." 

The  Israelite  bent  his  head. 

*'  Pardon  me,  sir.  I  should  not  have  doubted  your  mercy. 
Yet,  for  the  child's  sake,  I  would  hear  more.  Is  she  your 
daughter?" 

"Mine!     God  forbid!" 

The  Hebrew  turned  his  sightless  eyes  on  Castalia. 

"  Wilt  thou  leave  us?" 

She  lifted  her  eyes  to  Chandos;  her  life  now  had  no  law  but 
his  word,  no  sun  but  his  smile.  He  stooped  and  drooped  his 
lips  in  one  long  caress  upon  her  own. 

*'  Leave  us,  my  love— one  moment.  I  will  bo  with  you 
soon." 

She  passed  from  them  into  the  darkness  of  the  palace-en- 
trance. The  Hebrew  bent  his  face  so  that  the  moonlight 
which  he  felt  was  on  it  sliould  not  be  shed  there, 

"  Sir,  I  have  no  title  to  arraign  you.  Yet  they  tell  me  she 
has  a  marvelous  loveliness.  Will  you  make  of  her  but  your 
mistress?'* 

"  No;  she  shall  bear  my  name.** 

**  Verily?     And  you  were  ever  so  proud!" 

"I  am  too  much  so  now,  perhaps.  Yet  I  may  justly  b© 
too  proud  to  mislead  what  trusts  me.'* 


602  CHAKDOS. 

"Ah!  your  creeds  were  never  those  of  your  fellow-men. 
They  are  not  of  the  world,  sir — not  of  the  world!" 

There  was  an  acrid  bitterness  in  the  Israelite's  words,  be- 
cause he  felt  a  poignant  suffering;  he  moved  to  feel  his  foebia 
way  down  the  steps,  to  escape  the  presence  that  was  one  con- 
tinual rebuke  to  him.  Chandos  laid  his  hand  on  him  and 
arrested  him.  Memories  were  rising  from  the  vague  chaos  of 
far-off  remembrance;  knowledge  was  coming  to  him  dimly 
and  with  difficulty. 

*'  Wait!  We  have  other  words  to  speak.  Who  was  your 
chief,  your  tyrant:" 

For  a  moment  the  Hebrew's  frame  shook  in  every  fiber;  the 
next,  the  complete  control,  the  steel-like  power  of  endurance, 
in  him  returned — immovable. 

"  That  secret  will  be  buried  with  me." 

**  Buried.?  It  is  not  buried;  it  is  clear  to  me.  Answes 
me.     Your  bond-master  was  my  foe?" 

His  face  grew  eager,  and  quivered  with  swift-rising  passion, 
in  which  all  softer  memories  were  lost.  The  Hebrew's  feat, 
ures  never  changed;  they  were  cast  in  bronze,  when  it  would. 

"  It  may  be  so.     Perhaps  your  foes  are  many." 

"You  equivocate!  Answer  me — yes  or  no.  It  was  John 
Trevenna?" 

"  I  equivocate  in  nothing;  I  simply  keep  silence.  I  shall 
keep  it  until  death." 

The  answer  was  so  unmoved  in  its  iron  serenity  that  not 
even  the  man  who  watched  and  who  heard  him  could  gather 
one  sign  by  which  to  know  the  truth. 

''Keep  it?  And  he  tortured  you,  chained  you,  cursed 
you!" 

There  was  a  magnificent  grandeur  in  the  old  man's  attitude 
as  he  raised  his  head. 

"  What  of  that?  I  swore  the  oath  to  the  God  of  Israel;  I 
keep  it  because  he  spared  the  life  of  the  youth.  The  Gentilea 
take  oaths  by  our  God,  to  break  them;  ours  are  redeemed, 
come  what  will." 

Chandos  stood  silent  a  moment.  On  his  nature,  even  in  the 
first  agony  of  the  desire  for  vengeance,  the  appeal  could  not  be 
lost.  He  recognized  the  greatness  of  the  fidelity,  even  whilst 
it  stood  like  a  barrier  of  granite  between  him  and  the  justice 
of  retribution,  the  knowledge  of  his  past.  But,  as  he  gazed 
on  the  Hebrew,  the  light  of  remembrance  broke  on  him:  the 
crowd  of  the  porphyry  chamber  came  back  on  his  memory;  a 
great  cry  broke  from  him. 


CHANDOS,  503 

"  Wait!  /  swear  that  this  darkness  shall  be  made  light. 
You  were  among  the  claimants  on  Clarencieux?" 

The  Jew  turned  his  sightless  eyes,  hia  rugged  face  upon 
him,  impassive  as  death. 

"  Say  that  I  was;  what  does  that  prove?  There  were  many 
claimants,  and  just  ones/' 

The  fire  of  deadly  instincts  gathered,  in  Chandos's  eyes. 

*'  It  proves  enough  to  me!  A  Jew  firm  was  the  largest  of 
my  creditors:  that  firm  was  yours.  Your  tyrant  ruled  it:  that 
tyrant  was  my  traitor.  My  wealth  went  to  Iiim:  he  devoured 
it.  The  world  called  me  mad:  I  was  so,  for  I  was  his  dupe! 
Answer  me:  your  torturer  and  my  enemy  were  one?'' 

The  Hebrew's  features  were  impenetrable  as  the  night;  he 
was  stirred  no  more  than  were  the  marbles  around  him. 

"  You  speak  widely,  sir,  and  without  warrant.  It  is  vain 
to  appeal  to  me.  I  never  deny  nor  affirm;  I  keep  the  silence 
for  which  I  suffered. " 

"  Suffered!— and  for  a  fiend?*' 

"  Suffered — for  my  oath's  sake. " 

The  grandeur  of  the  resistance  to  him  wrung  his  reverence 
from  Chandos,  even  whilst  the  anguish,  the  fire,  the  impotence 
of  awakening  wrath  and  awakening  knowledge  rose  in  tumult. 

"  Keep  it!"  he  said,  while  his  voice  rang  with  the  might  of 
his  passions.  "  Kept  or  broken,  it  shall  avail  nothing  to  guard 
him  from  my  vengeance.  I  know  enough  without  more 
knowledge,  to  stamp  his  infamy  in  the  sight  of  men.  Those 
lost  deeds,  that  hidden  usury,  that  trading  in  the  trust  and 
the  necessities  of  his  friends — it  will  blast  his  name  through 
Europe!" 

The  Hebrew's  harsh,  calm  tones  answered  him  with  judicial 
brevity. 

"  What  do  you  know?  Nothing!  You  suspect — you  will 
epeak  on  suspicion;  baseless  and  unproved,  the  accusation  will 
recoil  harmless  from  the  accused,  to  brand  the  accuser  as  a 
libelist  and 4  false  witness.  " 

Chandos  quivered  in  every  limb  as  he  heard;  the  rage  of 
justice  paralyzed  from  its  stroke,  of  truth  impotent  to  make 
manifest  its  truth,  seized  him  with  maddening  misery.  Jle 
was  once  again  in  the  coils  of  the  net  that  had  wound  itself  so 
long  about  his  life  to  fetter  and  destroy. 

"Oh,  God!"  he  said,  "why  will  j'ou  shield  your  destroyer 
and  mine?  why  will  you  shelter  the  iniquity  you  have  said  you 
repent?  Your  own  soul  is  noble:  what  symi)athy  have  j'ou 
with  the  villainy  you  have  abjured?     Your  own  sacrifice  has 


604  CHANDOS. 

been  grand:  why  will  you  have  so  much  tenderns&s  G^  sina 
that  are  vile  as  murder?'' 

"  I  have  none;  but  I  am  true  to  him  by  whom  my  scSi  wai« 
spared.'' 

"  What!  are  traitors,  and  tyrants,  and  criminals  to  find 
such  loyalty,  whilst  honest  men  are  betrayed  and  abjured  by 
the  score?  Have  you  no  pity,  no  remorse,  for  the  wrongs  of 
a  hfe?" 

"  Sir,  if  I  had  ever  known  either  pity  or  remorse,  I  had  not 
been  what  I  was." 

Chandos's  hand  clinched  on  the  old  man's  shoulder.  Con- 
viction, strong,  unbearable,  intense,  was  on  him  that  this 
Hebrew  held  the  secret  of  his  enemy's  hatred,  and  that  John 
Trevenna  was  the  curse  of  both  their  fates;  yet  he  was  as  im- 
potent to  wring  the  truth  as  to  force  blood  from  the  cold  black 
marbles  beneath  their  feet. 

"  Listen!  I  have  pitied  you  from  my  heart,  honored  your 
endurance  from  my  soul;  but  I  have  the  wrongs  of  a  life-time 
to  avenge.  I  know,  as  though  the  iiroof  were  by  me,  that  my 
foe  is  one  with  your  master,  that  fraud  and  treachery  and  base- 
ness had  more  share  in  my  ruin  than  my  own  extravagance. 
Speak  now,  or — as  we  believe  in  one  God— the  law  shall  make 
you." 

The  Hebrew  turned  his  blind  eyes  on  him  with  the  patience 
of  his  race. 

*'  The  law?  It  did  its  worst  on  me:  had  it  power  to  make 
ine  speak?'* 

Chandos  almost  reeled  from  him. 

"  Great  Heaven!  crime  gets  such  loyalty  as  this,  while  I 
found  love  and  friendship  traitors!" 

The  Jew's  bronzed  face  grew  paler,  his  close-set  lips  shook 
slightly  under  the  snowy  whiteness  of  his  beard;  but  he  re- 
mained immovable.  Chandos  stood  above  him,  his  eyes 
black,  his  teeth  set. 

"  Man — man!  if  you  ever  loved,  if  you  ever  hated,  give  me 
my  vengeance!" 

"  Sir,"  said  the  Hebrew,  with  his  grave  and  caustic  speech, 
*'  beware!    You  lust  for  an  evil  thing. " 

"  No!  I  claim  a  barren  justice." 

"  Justice  is  not  given  on  earth.  Hear  me.  You  urge  me 
to  evil—" 

''  I  urge  you  to  the  service  of  truth,  to  the  chastisement  of 
infamy — " 

"  It  may  be  so;  yet  hear  me.  You  tempt  me  to  evil,  be- 
cause you  tempt  me  to  forswear  the  sole  fidelity  in  gratitude 


CHAKDOS.  503 

that  redeems  my  baseness.  I  know  your  life;  I  know  your 
thoughts;  I  know  that  you  have  loved  men  well,  served  tlieni 
unweariedly,  taught  them  high  and  gracious  things.  When 
you  heard  my  story,  you  called  it  a  martyrdom  whose  nobility 
men  seldom  reached:  why  call  it  now  a  sheltering  of  evil,  be- 
cause your  own  wish  is  to  behold  that  evil  unearthed?  You 
told  me  then  I  had  atoned  for  my  past;  why  tell  me  now  I 
only  stain  it  further?  This  is  unworthy  you — untrue  to  your 
creeds.  Were  your  passions  now  unloosened,  your  life  now 
unbiased,  you  would  be  the  first  to  say  to  me,  '  Before  all, 
keep  your  oath  sacred. '  " 

Chaiidos's  hand  fell,  his  breath  came  loud  and  quick;  he 
stood  like  one  pierced  to  the  heart  with  an  exceeding  bitter- 
ness. 

"  ISir,*'  went  on  the  Hebrew^s  unbroken,  impassive  voice, 
'*  it  is  true  that  you  have  a  secret  of  mine  that  you  can  tortiiro 
me  with,  if  you  will;  but  I  have  read  your  nature  wrong  if  yoa 
will  use  against  me  the  weapons  that  I,  unconscious,  placed 
in  your  hold.  You  have  passed  through  vast  calamities  since 
the  day  that  I  stood  amidst  your  spoilers;  they  will  have  failed 
to  teach  you  what  I  believe  they  have  taught  you,  if  you  tempt 
another  to  dishonor  because  through  that  dishonor  you  believe 
your  own  desires  would  be  served,  your  own  revenge  gained 
to  you. " 

Chandos  stood  silent  still;  a  mortal  struggle  shook  him. 

"  I  am  no  god,"  he  said,  hoarsely;  "  what  you  ask  of  me  fa 
a  god's  divine,  impartial  justice!  I,  as  a  man,  claim  a  man*a 
right,  a  man's  weakness,  a  man's  sin  of  vengeance. '*_ 

"  It  may  be  so:  yet,  if  you  bo  true  to  yourself,  it  h  that 
very  impartiality  of  justice — all  hard  though  it  may  be— that 
you  will  render." 

There  was  a  longer  silence,  in  which  only  the  lapping  of  the 
water  sounded.  No  demand  that  honor  had  ever  nuide  ou 
him  had  been  so  merciless  in  cruelty  as  this,  no  contest  that 
had  wrung  his  life  so  hard  to  meet.  His  voice  was  very  low 
as  it  fell  at  last  on  the  stillness. 

"  You  are  right!     I  tempt  you  no  more.*' 

The  Hebrew  bowed  his  head. 

"  There  a  great  life  spoke." 

Then,  slowly,  with  his  sightless,  feeble  movement,  ho  passed, 
down  the  water-stairs  till  the  dignity  of  his  dark,  bent  form 
was  lot:t  in  the  breadth  of  the  shadows.  Chandos  let  him  go, 
unarrested.  He  stood  there,  blind  to  all  around  him,  dead  tc 
all  memory  save  one.  The  blackness  of  night  was  on  his  soul, 
and  the  violence  of  baffled  passion  shook  him  as  a  storm 


506 


CIIAKDOS. 


wind  the  strength  of  the  cedars.     There  was  but  one  terrible 
thirst  upou  him— the  thirst  for  his  vengeance. 

Where  he  stood,  his  arm  dropped  as  though  the  iiervous 
force  of  it  were  broken;  his  eyes  gazed  without  sight  down  the 
shaft  of  the  gloomy  stairs  where  the  water  glistened  cold  and 
gliding  in  the  flicker  cf  the  moon.  The  conviction  of  his  foe's 
guilt  was  scored  on  his  mind  as  though  he  had  beheld  it  writ> 
ten  up  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  lands;  th{? 
meshes  of  his  own  impotence  for  chastisement  and  retribution 
bound  him  helpless  as  one  paralyzed;  the  human  lust  of  evil 
possessed  him  as  his  madness  possessed  Saul. 

_  Awhile— and  in  the  soft  Venetian  darkness  of  the  young 
night  Oastalia  stole  to  him,  she  touched  his  hand  with  the 
suppliant  kiss  of  her  tender  homage,  she  raised  upward  to  his 
face  the  dreamy  luster  of  her  eyes. 

"  My  lord,  is  regret  with  you  because  you  were  too  merci- 
ful to  me?     If  it  be,  say  it.     My  life  is  only  lived  for  you." 

His  arms  drew  her  to  him  in  the  vibration  of  the  passions 
that  beat  in  him;  his  lips,  hot  and  white,  burned  in  their  kisses 
on  her  own. 

"  Eegret— when  in  you  I  find  all  the  consolation  I  shall  ever 
know?  Castalia,  dark  hours  come  on  me:  you  must  not  fear 
them.  My  heart  is  sick  because  of  its  own  failure.  Tempted, 
I  am  weak  as  water,  I  am  cruel  as  murderers.  I  have  lived, 
and  striven,  and  suffered,  and  sought  to  serve  men,  only  at 
the  last  to  reel  back  into  a  barbarian's  lust — to  be  athirst  with 
a  Cain's  desires!" 

For  the  evil  that  his  foe  had  wrought  him  had  not  yet 
reached  its  end,  and  it  poisoned  now  the  first  sweet  hours  ol 
reviving  happiness. 
It  might  go  further  yet,  and  close  his  life  in  crime. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  CODES   OF  ARTHUR. 

In"  the  darkness  of  large,  jutting  marble  blocks,  in  another 
qua,rter  of  Venice,  Ignatius  Mathias  held  his  almost  nightly 
vigil — the  vigil  which  had  but  one  aim  and  but  one  reward — 
to  hear  the  passing  footstep  of  his  son.  Agostino  had  come  to 
Venice  in  the  restlessness  of  one  who  has  peace  nowhere,  and 
vainly  thinks  with  each  new  refuge  to  escape  what  haunts 
him.  He  lived  the  life  that  a  hare  leads  in  hunting  seasons; 
the  season  may  pass  and  leave  the  animal  in  safety,  unmolested 
under  the  shade  of  fern  and  thyme,  but  none  the  less  with 


CHANDOS.  507 

every  hour  must  its  heart  beat,  and  its  sleep  be  broken,  and  its 
nerves  tremble  at  every  crack  of  the  branches,  every  sough  of 
the  wind,  lest  its  hunters  be  out  on  its  scent.  Years  would 
go,  and  his  tyrant  need  nothing  of  him;  but  all  the  same  he 
was  never  sure  but  that  some  cruel  task  might  any  day  be  re- 
quired at  his  hands,  and  no  alternative  left  him  but  to  do  its 
work,  however  abhorrent,  or  to  brave  the  shame  of  public 
slander  and  public  exposure  from  which  the  feminine  terrors 
of  his  nature  had  so  long  shrunk  as  more  unendurable  than 
death.  But  of  this  tyranny  that  ruled  his  life  his  father  knew 
nothing:  he  heard  of  the  painter's  fame,  of  his  talent,  of  his 
growing  wealth,  of  his  adoration  of  his  art,  of  his  love  for  his 
Spanish  wife,  and  he  believed  Agostino  happy  with  the  hap- 

{)iness  that  he  had  himself  sacrificed  all  to  purchase  for  "  the 
ad.'*  He  was  ever  but  a  youth  in  the  old  man's  thoughts,  a 
beautiful,  yielding,  caressing,  tender-natured  boy,  won  by  a 
fcmile,  crashed  by  a  stern  word,  as  he  had  been  when  the  eyes 
whose  blindness  now  kept  him  ever  young  in  their  memory 
had  last  looked  npon  the  graciousness  of  his  early  years. 
That  Agostino  could  grow  older  with  the  growth  of  time  never 
came  to  the  remembrance  of  one  who  had  parted  with  him  in 
his  boyhood;  he  had  eternal  youth  in  the  love  of  the  sightless 
man.  There  is  thus  far  mercy  for  the  blind,  that  they  know 
nothing  of  the  Btealing  change  that  robs  the  beauty  which  is 
nherished  from  the  eyes  that  cherish  it,  slowly  and  cruelly, 
until  the  last  change  of  all. 

Ignatius  Mathias  stood  now,  so  guiding  himself  by  the  mar- 
velous compensative  instinct  which  his  calamity  confers,  that 
he  was  secured  from  all  passers-by  by  the  jutting  out  of  the 
stone,  and  his  long,  black,  floating  garments  could  scarce  be 
told  from  the  marble  that  shrouded  him.  If  by  any  chance  a 
stray  moonbeam  wandered  through  to  the  deep  shelter  of  the 
statueless  niche,  it  would  have  seemed  to  any  casual  passer-by 
that  it  was  filled  by  eomo  sculptured  figure  of  prophet  or  of 
priest  which  was  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  solemn  and  mel- 
ancholy grandeur  round.  He  was  listening  eagerly,  intently; 
but  his  hands  were  clinched  on  the  marble  where  he  leaned, 
and  his  heart  ached  with  the  burden  of  remorse,  the  dry,  tear- 
less, hopeless  jjrief  of  ago. 

It  had  pierced  him  to  the  quick  to  remain  steeled  to  Chan- 
dos's  prayer,  as  it  had  been  bitter  to  him  to  show  no  sign  of  re- 
spect in  the  porphyry  hall  at  Chirencieux,  when  all  the  heart- 
less crowd  about  him  had  been  moved  and  awed  by  the  dignity 
of  adversity.  The  keen  Tsrnelito  could  reverence  from  his 
foul  the  man  who  in  his  deadliest  paaeions  was  still  obedient 


508  CHAFDOS. 

to  the  demand  and  the  duty  of  justice;  and  he  felt  that  h« 
too  had  sinned  toward  him. 

"  It  was  a  villainous  sin  to  rob  him/'  he  mused — '*  vilest 
treacher}^  vilest  murder.  He  heaped  coals  of  fire  on  my  head 
with  every  one  of  his  just  words;  and  yet  it  would  bring  him 
nothing  even  if  he  knew  all.  We  were  always  within  the  law. 
He  would  wreck  all  the  nobility  of  his  nature  in  the  blood- 
hound thirst  of  vengeance;  he  would  do  what  would  belie  his 
life.  Pshaw!  why  do  I  deal  with  these  sophistries?  If  he  slew 
his  foe,  and  slew  me,  it  would  be  no  more,  as  he  said,  than 
barren  justice.  But  give  it  him  I  never  will.  Sin  or  martyr- 
dom, whichever  it  be,  added  crime  or  atoning  fidelity,  I  will 
die  silent;  I  will  be  true  to  him  by  whom  my  son  was  spared 
— true  to  the  last.  *' 

His  face  set  in  stern,  unflinching  resolve,  the  firmness  of 
fiilence;  the  dignity  of  faithfulness,  which  would  be  true  to 
its  bond,  even  if  that  bond  were  forged  by  crime,  lent  it  no- 
bility; then  the  caustic  and  ironic  bitterness  in  which  his  tem- 
)jer  had  steeled  itself  long  to  all  gentler  things  passed  over  it. 

"Why  should  I  care  for  one?"  he  muttered.  "There 
were  thousands.  If  I  ever  spoke,  I  should  unloose  hell-dogs; 
;if  I  ever  made  atonement  by  turning  traitor,  what  lives  I 
should  have  to  summon  out  of  their  graves  to  hear  my  ?nea 
tndpa  if  I  called  all  my  auditors!'* 

The  smile  was  evil  on  his  face,  though  that  evil  was  more 
sad  than  other  men's  sorroWo  His  hands  had  been  as  mill- 
stones, grinding  all  that  went  through  them  to  powder,  that 
the  grist  might  feed  the  yawning  sack  of  money-lust.  If  all 
his  accusers  would  rise  against  him,  the  tomb  must  yield  up 
its  dead. 

A  slight  sound  caught  his  ear;  he  started,  and  listened  as 
Indians  listen.  He  had  kept  this  vigil  long  and  often,  in 
divers  scenes  and  divers  hours — under  the  cold  shadow  of 
green  leaves,  under  the  driving  snow  of  winter  nights,  under 
the  broad  gaWes  of  antique  houses,  under  the  drenching  rains 
of  autumn  skies,  under  the  mild  stars  of  vintage  eves,  moving 
anweariedly  in  the  changing,  restless  track  of  an  artist's  wan- 
derings, content  if  reward  came  in  the  echo  of  a  laugh,  in  the 
distant  murmur  of  a  voice,  in  the  passing  of  a  far-off  footfall. 
Unseen,  unthanked,  unrecompensed,  save  by  such  fleeting 
tilings  as  could  be  borne  on  summer  air  or  heard  through 
winter  blasts,  his  great  and  silent  love  endured.  A  step 
passed  by  him;  he  held  his  breath  as  it  went;  he  knew  that 
his  son  was  nigh.  Then  the  faint  sound  died  to  silence,  and 
the  light  died  from  liis  face;  this  was  all,  all  that  was  left 


CHAKDOS.  509 

hiin — one  moment  to  be  scored  against  a  martyrdom;  and  bis 

lips  moved  in  voiceless  prayer  and  tlianksgiving.     He  breathed 

his  blessing  on  the  life  that  passed  by  him  in  the  hush  of  the 

tiight;  he  was  grateful  even  for  so  little.     It  sufficed;  his  son 

lived. 

******* 

Where  the  silver  luster  of  the  Venetian  moon  poured  down 
through  lofty  casements  of  a  desolate  palace-chamber,  Chan- 
dos,  as  he  looked  into  the  ej'es  that  once  more  spoke  to  him  in 
the  language  of  his  youth,  strove  to  put  from  him  the  remem- 
brance of  his  traitor,  the  thirst  for  his  vengeance;  and  he 
could  not.  The  darkness  of  a  violent  and  unsparing  hatred 
had  seized  him.  Hate  was  foreign  to  his  nature,  yet  it  had 
sprung  in  growth  fast  as  poison-plants  from  poison-seeds  in 
the  rank  soil  of  Africa.  With  his  foe  in  his  hands  now,  he 
could  have  stamped  his  life  out  with  as  little  mercy  as  men 
show  who  crush  a  rattlesnake.  The  fangs  of  a  snake  had  bit- 
ten him;  the  coils  of  a  snake  strangled  him;  the  virus  of  a 
snake  entered  his  whole  life  to  change  and  wither  and  con- 
fiume  it.  The  snake  was  Treachery;  and  he  oould  have  killed 
the  traitor  with  the  fierce  meed  of  such  justice  as  men  took 
when  the  sword  made  alike  law  and  judge  and  avenger. 

He  strove  to  thrust  it  from  him,  and  it  would  return — re- 
turn to  darken  and  imbitter  the  sweetness  of  a  love  long  de- 
nied to  him,  vivid  and  voluptuous  as  any  that  had  usurped 
him  in  the  years  when  the  fairness  of  woman  had  made  his 
paradise.  He  had  left  her  a  child,  to  pity,  to  caress,  to  play 
with,  without  deeper  thought;  he  found  her  in  a  few  brief 
months,  extreme  as  her  youth  still  was,  a  woman  in  her  superb 
beaut}',  her  courage,  her  genius,  her  patrician  grace,  her  far- 
reaching  meditative  thought,  her  endurance  of  fullering,  her 
fearlessness  through  danger.  AVith  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  she 
had  left  Valombrosa  on  the  sting  of  coarse  jests  of  the  peas- 
antry, that  she  had  resented  without  wholly  comprehending, 
of  imputed  dishonor  to  her  and  to  him  which  had  roused  her 
like  a  young  lioness,  though  she  had  but  dimly  known  their 
meaning—left  it,  and  flung  herself  on  the  unknown,  un- 
traversed  world  with  the  simplicity  of  a  child:  she  was  now 
abandoned  to  him,  to  his  will,  to  his  wish,  to  his  power,  ask- 
ing him  nothing  of  his  life,  yielding  him  an  absolute  submis- 
sion, and  seeking  no  more  of  him  or  of  the  world  than  the  one 
joy  of  his  presence.  But  it  was  the  fire  of  the  South  with 
which  she  worshiped  him;  the  intense  strength  of  a  supremo 
passion  vibrated  through  the  unquestioning  idolatry  she  ren- 
dered him.     "  Poco  spcro,  nulla  c/iicde,"  had  been  the  soul 


610  CHANDOS. 

of  the  reverence  she  bore  him;  but  with  it  ran  the  bumingj 
wt(rmth  of  the  suns  that  had  shone  on  her  from  her  birth, 
with  it  was  blended  the  proud  impassioned  self-oblivion  that 
would  have  made  her  say  for  her  own  fate,  in  words  she  had 
once  quoted  ere  she  wholly  knew  their  meaning,  "  Si  Tem- 
pereur  eut  voulu  m'honorer  du  nom  de  son  epouse,  j'aurais 
mieux  aimer  etre  appelee  ta  maitresse. " 

It  was  the  love  of  which  he  had  dreamed — the  love  which  he 
had  desired,  and  never  found. 

In  those  long  hours  of  the  spring  night,  while  the  lulling  of 
the  water  sounded  softly  through  the  open  casements,  and  no 
light  was  about  them  except  the  light  of  the  great  stars  above 
Venice,  he  almost  resigned  himself  to  their  enchantment,  he 
almost  cheated  himself  into  the  belief  that  the  years  of  his 
youth  had  revived — almost.  The  desire  of  vengeance,  the 
baffled  justice,  the  impotence  to  cast  off  one  stone  from  the 
granite  cairn  that  had  been  heaped  to  crush  his  peace  be- 
neath it,  all  these  that  were  upon  him  forbade  him  the  one 
lotus-draught  he  longed  for — forgetfulness.  The  intensity 
of  the  hatred  roused  in  him,  the  exhaustion  of  the  conflict 
through  which  he  had  passed  when  the  code  of  his  justice  had 
been  arraigned  against  the  instincts  of  his  nature,  had  left  a 
shadow  upon  him  dark  as  the  past  to  which  they  stretched. 
Of  that  past  he  did  not  speak  to  her;  he  could  not  travel  back- 
ward over  it,  even  in  words;  she  would  know  it  in  the  future, 
but  not  yet  could  he  relate  it.  With  her  he  strove  to  let  it 
•flie;  the  kiss  of  her  lips,  the  touch  of  her  hair,  the  beating  of 
her  heart  upon  his  own,  the  gaze  with  which  their  eyes  met 
in  the  dreamy  luminance  of  the  moonlight,  were  better  elo- 
quence than  speech. 

Once  alone  regret  broke  from  him  as  he  looked  down  on 
the  sovereign  loveliness  with  which  nature  had  gifted  her,  as 
though  in  recompense  for  all  which  it  denied  her. 

"  Ah,  Castalia!  once  I  could  have  given  you  the  royalties 
that  you  would  have  graced  so  richly!  Now,  my  love,  my 
mistress,  my  darling,  my  life  is  but  dark,  and  lonely,  and  joy- 
less for  such  years  as  yours.  It  is  very  weary,  it  is  little 
above  poverty;  it  is  spent  in  banishment.'^ 

Where  she  rested  on  his  breast,  the  liquid  brilliance  of 
her  gaze  met  his  in  the  flickering  shadows. 

"  Your  thoughts  are  greater  glory  than  any  crowns.  And 
—do  you  not  know  yet  that  I  could  have  no  exile  while  your 
hand  touched  mine?  that  I  could  feel  no  poverty  while  I 
could  still  look  upward  to  your  face?  Oh,  my  lord,  my  king! 
do  not  shame  me.     1  am  nameless  and  unhonored,  and  with- 


CHANDOS;  511 

out  worth  in  me  to  have  one  title  to  your  life.  You  honored 
me  more  than  empires  could  honor  when  you  once  let  rest  on 
me  the  graciousnes  and  pity  of  your  love!" 

His  arms  drew  her  closer  to  his  bosom,  and  his  lips  dwelt 
long  on  her  own;  this  heart  so  wholly  yielded  to  him,  thia 
faith  which  asked  him  nothing  of  what  his  past  had  been, 
this  nature  which  gave  echo  to  all  that  was  highest  in  his  own, 
were  more  precious  to  him  yet  than  even  the  luxuriance  of 
beauty  that  he  looked  on  in  the  midnight  gleam  of  Venice — ■ 
beauty  that  would  be  his  while  breath  should  move  and  exist- 
ence throb  in  it. 

"  Oh,  my  child! — my  darling!"  he  murmured,  as  his  hand 
wandered  among  the  luster  of  her  hair,  "  who  could  behold 
you  and  fail  to  give  you  love?  While  I  look  into  your  eyes,  I 
live  in  my  lost  world  once  more.^^ 

For  love  itself  is  youth,  and  can  not  revive  without  bringing 
some  light  of  youth  back  with  it. 

With  her,  his  life  seemed  once  more  what  it  had  been  when, 
in  the  languor  of  the  East,  and  under  the  glow  of  Southern 
skies,  he  had  loved  and  been  loved  in  the  careless  vivid  sweet- 
ness of  a  poet's  passions,  deep-hued  and  changing  as  a  sap- 
phire in  the  sun.  But  when  later  he  left  her  for  the  few 
short  hours  remaining  of  the  Venetian  night,  left  her  lest 
foul  tongues  should  touch  her  defenseless  innocence,  the  spell 
broke,  the  black  desires  that  had  wakened  in  him  imbittered 
and  banished  the  softer  dreams  that  for  the  moment  had 
usurped  him.  His  soul  was  set  upon  his  vengeance — set  in 
the  impotence  of  David's  desperation:  "  How  long,  0  Lord? 
how  long?"  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  no  retribution  could 
ever  serve  to  wash  out  his  wrongs,  and  stamp  his  traitor  what 
he  was  in  the  sight  of  the  people  who  followed  and  believed  in 
him;  it  seemed  to  him  as  though  no  justice  that  could  rend 
the  living  lie  of  this  man's  life  asunder,  and  show  its  hidden 
vileness  to  the  world  he  fooled,  would  ever  cut  deep  enough, 
ever  reach  wide  enough,  ever  avail  enough  to  avenge  the  end- 
less treachery  with  which  his  foe  had  taken  food  and  raiment 
and  wealth  from  him  with  one  hand,  to  thieve  and  stab  hint 
with  the  other.  "My  God!"  he  thought,  as  he  went  alone 
through  the  stillness  of  the  after-midnight,  "  what  could 
vengeance  do  sufficient?  None  could  give  me  back  all  the 
world  I  have  lost,  all  the  years  I  have  consumed,  all  the  joy 
he  wrecked  forever,  all  the  youth  he  slew  in  me  at  one  blow. 
Vengeance!  the  worst  would  be  as  a  drop  beside  an  ocean. 
He  has  prospered,  and  enjoyed,  and  triumj)hed,  all  his  lifo 
long:  how  would  vengeance  merely  at  the  end  strike  the  bal- 


513  CHANDOS. 

ance  betvveeii  us?  If  my  baud  were  at  his  throat  now,  how 
would  one  death-paug  pay  me  for  all  the  living  torture  of  nigh 
half  a  life-time?'^ 

No  requital  that  thought  could  reach  seemed  vast  enough  to 
embrace  the  wrongs  wrought  on  him  from  the  first  hour  when 
the  generous  faith  of  his  boyhood  had  flung  him  without  de- 
fense into  the  net  and  the jDOwer  of  his  traitor's  subtlety.  If 
tbe  means  came  to  his  hand  to  strike  his  enemy  down  from  the 
eminence  of  station  and  the  fruitage  of  achieved  ambition,  it 
could  do  at  its  best  so  little;  if  it  could  destroy  the  future,  it 
could  efface  nothing  of  the  joast,  it  could  change  none  of  these 
years  that  had  seemed  so  endless,  throngh  whose  course  he  had 
dwelt  in  banishment  and  bitterness  and  seen  his  Iscariot  ca- 
ressed and  crowned.  Though  his  hand  should  ever  dash  dovv^n 
the  brimming  cup  of  Trevenna's  success,  the  uneven  balance 
between  them  could  never  be  redressed;  the  world-wide  wrong 
must  ever  remain  unrequited,  uneffaced.  What  could  give 
him  back  all  it  had  killed  forever  in  him?  What  could  bring 
back  to  earth  the  gallant  and  beloved  life  of  the  old  niau 
whom  it  had  slain?  What  could  restore  him  to  all  he  had  foi'- 
feited  through  it?  What  could  make  him  ever  again  as  he 
had  been  when  its  ruin  had  blasted  the  glory  from  his  years 
forever? 

Vengeance!- — its  fatality,  its  insufficiency,  its  weakness  of 
act,  beside  the  strength  and  longing  of  his  own  passions,  re- 
coiled ujDon  him  with  the  heart-sickness  of  vain  desire:  yet  the 
world  seemed  to  hold  but  one  thought,  one  future,  one  travail 
on  him — justice  against  his  traitor! 

Where  he  went  in  the  silence  of  the  late  night,  past  the 
great  Austrian  palaces  of  Venice,  that  were  filled  with  revelry 
and  music,  and  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  and  the  masking  of 
Carnival  balls,  with  the  gay  riots  of  the  melodies  echoing 
through  the  conquered  city,  and  the  wreathing  of  gold  and 
silk  and  many-colored  blossoms  hanging  all  alight  with  lamps 
over  the  melancholy  and  the  dignity  of  the  time-honored,  sea- 
worn  marbles,  the  rich,  rolling,  silver  cadence  of  a  Bacchic 
chant,  sung  with  careless  mirth  and  deep  Olympian  laughter, 
ran  across  the  waters  and  above  the  strains  of  the  Austrian 
music.     It  was  the  voice  of  Philippe  d'Orvale. 

In  his  Carnival  dress,  with  its  scarlet-and-gold  floating  back, 
and  the  light  of  the  stars  and  the  crescents  of  lamps  glittering 
on  its  jeweled  brilliance,  he  came  down  a  flight  of  stone  stairs 
from  some  reckless  revelry,  the  song  on  his  lips,  the  laughter 
still  given  back  in  answer  to  a  challenge  from  some  fair  mask- 
ers that  leaned  above,  the  fragrance  of  wine  only  just  dashed 


CHAKDOS.  513 

from  the  auburn  silver-flecked  waves  of  his  beard.  "  Vivra 
ialon  son  coeur  !"  was  the  epitome  of  the  "  mad  duke's  "  life, 
as  of  Diderot's;  and,  as  in  Diderot's,  there  was  a  grand, 
careless.  Titan  majesty  in  this  handsome  head,  tossed  buck  in 
such  fiery  defiance,  such  sunny  hiughter,  against  the  laws  of 
conventionality  and  tiie  snow-barriers  of  prejudice.  Life  was 
too  rich  with  him  to  be  stinted  by  a  niggard  measure;  its  joys, 
its  passions,  its  treasures,  its  scope,  too  wide,  to  be  meted  out 
by  the  foot-rule  of  custom;  and  while  men  of  his  own  years 
grew  gray  about  him,  the  prince-Bohemian  laughed  at  Time, 
and  found  the  roses  of  his  wine-feasts  blossom  never  fading  to 
his  liand. 

His  Bacchan  chant  paused;  a  gentle,  softened  look 
gleamed  from  the  flash  o£  his  brown,  fearless  eyes,  as  in  the 
shadow  of  the  street  he  saw  Chandos. 

"  Ah!  c'est  toi !"  And  in  the  caress  of  the  French  tutoie- 
ment,  and  the  touch  of  his  hand  as  it  fell  on  the  shoulder  oi 
the  man  he  loved  best,  there  was  the  welcome  of  a  friendship 
close  as  brotherhood. 

Not  a  tree  had  ever  been  felled  at  Clarencieux;  not  a  pict- 
ure been  stirred,  not  a  horse,  useless  from  age,  been  shot,  not 
a  trifle  in  the  whole  length  of  the  chambers,  not  an  unfinished 
eketch  in  the  forsaken  atelier,  not  a  disordered  maiuiscript  in 
the  solitude  of  the  Greuze  Cabinet,  been  touched,  under 
Philippe  d'Orvale's  reign.  With  him  the  exile  was  honored; 
with  him  the  memory  of  the  disinherited  was  kept  green  and 
cherished  and  sacred  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  "  I  am  but 
his  viceroy;  keej")  your  homage  for  the  absent,"  he  had  said 
once  when  the  peasantry  had  addressed  him  as  their  lord. 

"  So!  you  are  in  Venice?"  he  said,  softly,  where  he  paused 
in  the  deeper  shadow,  with  the  festoons  of  light  and  the  ara- 
besques of  flower-wreathed  balcony  far  above,  reilected  in  tho 
black  surface  of  the  canal.  "  I  half  hoped  to  meet  you  heio 
when  I  came  for  this  riotous  Carnival  time  with  which  our 
Austrian  Felix  tries  to  drown  the  murmurs  of  her  prey.  You 
have  not  been  long,  Ernest?" 

"  I  came  but  to-day.     Lulli  needed  me — " 

"  Lulli?  what  ails  him?'*  This  princely  Bohemian,  whoso 
own  strength  was  so  superb  and  whose  existence  so  joyous,  had 
always  had  a  singular  compassion  and  tenderness  for  the  crip- 
ple whose  art  was  his  only  happiness;  his  home  liad  always 
been  open  to  him,  his  aid  always  ready  for  him.  The  strong 
hand  of  the  aristocrat  had  often  raised  the  fame  of  the  mu- 
sician above  the  onvy  or  tho  rivalry  that  had  tried  to  crush  it, 


Sl4  CSAKDOS. 

aud  not  a  little  of  the  wealth  given  to  Lulli  for  his  music  hac^ 
gone  in  secret  from  D'Orvdle,  unguessecl  by  the  recipient. 

"  Nothing  ails  him/'  Chandos  answered,  wearily;  hia 
thoughts  were  far  iii  other  things.  "  But  a  singer  has  been 
arrested  here  for  giving  some  of  his  music  in  public — some 
song  of  freedom  too  free  for  Austria;  and  his  heart  is  set  on 
her  liberation.  ■" 

"Ah!'*  the  duke  ground  his  heel  into  the  pavement;  "I 
will  see  to  that.  They  shall  give  her  her  liberty  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  The  fools!  to  think  that  by  scourging  a  woman 
they  can  consolidate  an  empire!  Every  weakness  persecuted 
becomes  strength  against  its  persecutor  when  once  hunted  into 
martyrdom.     And  they  will  not  know  that!" 

"  When  they  do,  human  life  will  have  entered  on  a  very 
different  i^hase  from  what  we  live  in." 

Philijjpe  d'Orviile  flashed  a  quick  glance  on  him.  This 
wild,  headlong,  insouciant  rioter  could  read  men  like  a  book. 

"Tell  me/'  he  said,  gently  (and  his  voice  had  the  sweet- 
ness of  a  tender  woman's) — "  tell  me;  you  have  had  some 
fresh  pain — some  new  wrong?" 

"  Scarcely;  but  I  have  had  fresh  temptation,  and  I  have 
little  strength  for  it." 

"  You  always  underrate  your  strength!" 

"Not  I.  Sometimes  I  think  that  were  impossible.  We 
flatter  ourselves  we  have  strength,  we  pride  ourselves  on  our 
codes,  on  our  johilosophies,  on  our  forbearance;  and  the  mo- 
ment a  spark  is  dropped  on  our  worst  passions,  they  flare 
alight  and  consume  all  else!" 

The  duke  tossed  back  the  glitter  of  his  Carnival  dress. 

"  May  be!  But  the  age  rants  too  much  against  the  pas- 
sions. From  them  may  spring  things  that  are  vile;  but  with- 
out them  life  were  stagnant,  and  heroic  action  dead.  Storms 
destroy;  but  storms  purify." 

Chandos  paused  in  the  shade  of  the  marble  wall  looming 
above,  and  turned  his  eyes  on  his  companion.  To  the  man 
who  had  been  faithful  to  him  under  trial  as  no  other  had  been, 
to  the  man  who  had  saved  the  honor  of  his  heritage  from  being 
parceled  out  amidst  knaves  and  hucksters,  he  bore  more  than 
friendship,  and  he  spoke  with  the  frankness  of  brethren. 

"  There  is  truth  in  that;  but  we  are,  at  our  best,  half  pas- 
sion, half  intelligence,  and  at  a  touch  the  brute  will  rise  in  us 
and  strangle  all  the  rest.  No  man  can  wholly  suppress  the  ani- 
mal in  him;  and  there  are  timcai  whsii  ho  will  long  to  kill  aa 
animals  long  for  it*' 


CHANDOS.  515 

^  "  Ay!"   Philippe  d'Orvdle's  fair,  frank  face  flushed,  and  hia 
fight  hand  clinched;  he  had  known  that  longing. 

"  Tell  me — tell  me  whether  to-nighfc  I  was  weak  as  a  fool, 
or  did  but  barren  justice.  I  barely  can  tell  myself.  John 
Trevenna  has  been  the  foe  of  my  life;  you  know  that — " 

"  Know  it!  Yes! — a  hound  who  turned  on  his  master.  By 
my  faith,  when  I  see  that  man  in  honor  and  eminence,  I 
know  what  Georges  Cadoudal  meant  when  he  said,  '  Que  de 
fautes  j'ai  commis  de  ne  pas  etouffer  cet  homme-la  dans  mes 
b"ras!'  If  there  be  a  regret  in  my  life,  it  is  that  /did  not  kill 
him  where  he  stood  laughing  and  taunting  ou  your  hearth, 
while  you  went  out  to  your  exile !^' 

The  blood  flushed  Chandos's  face,  and  his  teeth  set  hard. 

"You  left  it  for  me!"  There  was  a  terrible  meaning  in 
the  brevity  of  the  words.  ""Well,  to-night  I  could  have  had 
my  vengeance  ou  him,  to-night  I  could  have  unearthed  his 
villainy  to  hold  it  up  before  the  nation  that  takes  him  as  a 
chief;  to-night  I  know  as  though  I  saw  it  written  before  me 
that  he  betra3^ed  me,  chicaned  me,  robbed  me  as  usurers  rob; 
and — I  let  justice  go!'* 

"  Let  it  go!  Are  you  mad?'*  The  duke's  eyes  were  aflame 
like  a  lion's,  his  breath  came  hotly,  his  Southern  temper  was 
on  fire  like  so  much  spirit  lighted,  at  the  words  and  the  wrongs 
of  his  friend. 

'*  That  is  what  I  doubt!  I  would  sell  my  own  life  for  jus- 
tice on  him;  1  fear  I  could  kill  him  with  less  thought  than 
men  kill  adders! — and  yet  I  let  it  go.  I  could  not  reach  it 
without  forcing  another  to  break  his  oath,  to  forswear  his  con- 
science, to  sin  against  the  only  redemption  of  his  life:  what 
could  I  dor" 

"  Do?  I  would  have  crushed  ten  thousand  to  have  struck 
at  him  !     Tell  me  more." 

"lean  not.  It  is  another's  secret,  not  my  own;  w^ere  it 
mine,  you  should  know  it.  All  the  laws  of  justice  and 
humanity  bound  me  powerless;  I  could  not  break  through 
them.  I  had  honored  this  man's  fidelity  when  I  was  in  igno- 
rance whom  it  was  rendered  to:  1  could  not  dishonor  it  because 
I  learned  that  it  was  shown  to  my  enemy." 

Philii)pe  d'Orvale  stood  silent,' his  teeth  crushing  his  silken 
beard. 

"  Few  men  would  have  stayed  for  that,**  he  said,  curtly,  at 
the  last. 

"  May  be!  It  was  hard  for  me  to  stay  for  it.  It  is  hard  as 
denth  now!  It  were  surely  small  crime  to  tempt  any  one  U 
betray  a  traitor:  jt  were  but  to  turn  against  him  his  own  poi. 


516  CHANDOS. 

Boned  weapons.  One  oath  broken  more  or  less,  what  would  it 
be  ill  self-defense  against  one  who  has  broken  thousands, 
broken  every  tie  and  bond  of  gratitude,  of  honesty?  And  yet 
— riglit  is  right.  I  could  not  bid  another  turn  betrayer  be- 
cause I  had  been  betrayed.  Look!  to  have  my  justice  of 
vengeance,  I  must  have  done  injustice  to  one  placed,  in  hi?, 
own  unconsciousness  and  by  his  own  trust,  in  my  power. 
Which  could  I  choose? — to  forego  it,  or  to  wrong  him?'' 

Philipi^e  d'Orvale  lifted  his  lion's  head  with  a  toss  of  his 
lion's  mane;  his  eyes  rested  on  Chandos  with  a  loyal,  flashing, 
noble  light. 

"  Forego  it !  Your  vengeance  were  ill  purchased  bj  any 
falsehood  to  yourself." 

It  wrung  his  heart  to  say  so,  well-nigh  as  hard  as  it  had  cost 
Chandos  to  yield  the  sacrifice  the  Israelite  had  asked  for 
him ;  for  he  could  hate  with  a  great  hatred,  fierce  and  stern  as 
his  friendship  was  fervent,  and  that  hate  fell  on  none  heavier 
than  on  John  Trevenna.  But  the  creeds  of  the  superb  gentle- 
man could  not  forswear  themselves. 

Chandos  stretched  out  his  hand  in  silence;  D'Orvdle's  met 
it  in  a  close,  firm  grasp.  They  said  no  more;  they  understood 
each  other  without  words:  only,  as  they  parted  further  on  in 
the  lateness  of  the  night,  the  prince-Bohemian's  regard  dwelt 
on  him  with  something  that  was  wistful  for  once  almost  to  sad- 
ness—a thing  that  had  no  place  in  the  brilliant  and  heedlepi? 
career  of  the  "mad  duke." 

"  Chandos,  you  were  made  for  Arthur's  days,  not  for  ours. 
Those  grand  creeds  avail  nothing — except  to  ruin  yourself. 
Yet  you  would  rather  have  them?  Well,  so  would  I,  though 
I  am  but  a  v/ine-cup  roisterer." 

As  he  spoke,  the  lights  burning  above  among  a  sea  of  flow- 
ers and  colors,  in  crescents  and  stars  and  bands  of  fire,  shone 
on  the  leonine  royalty  of  his  head  and  the  majesty  of  his 
height,  all  lustrous  with  the  scarlet  and  the  gold  and  the  dia- 
monds of  his  Carnival  attire.  There  was  an  unusual  softness 
in  his  brown,  bold  eyes,  an  unusual  touch  of  melancholy  in  his 
voice:  that  one  memory  of  him  was  never  to  pass  away  from 
Chando«. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ET    TU,     BRTTE! 

Theough  the  brilliance  of  the  earliest  sun-dawn  a  gondola 
chot  swiftly  through  the  silent  highways,  with  the  light  on  the 
water  breaking  from  under  its  prow  in  a  shower  of  rippling 


CHANDOS.  517 

gold,  and  the  brown  shadows  lazily  sleeping  under  the  arches 
of  bridges,  and  under  the  towering  walls,  as  though  they  were 
loath  to  wake  and  flee  before  the  rising  of  day.  It  was  just 
morning;  no  more,  but  morning  in  all  its  radiance,  with  the 
scarlet  heads  of  carnations  unclosing,  and  the  many-colored 
hues  warm  over  land  and  sea,  with  the  darkness  only  left  in 
the  hushed  aisles  of  churches,  and  the  breath  of  the  sea- wind 
blowing  balmily  from  the  Adriatic.  Guido  Lulli,  where  he 
leaned  in  the  vessel,  saw  it  all  with  an  artist's  eye,  felt  it  all 
with  an  artist's  heart,  and  wove  magical  dreams  of  sound  from 
the  melody  of  the  oars.  Life  had  been  but  captious  with  him, 
giving  him  the  head  of  a  seraph  and  the  limbs  of  a  stricken 
child,  tlie  heart  of  a  man  and  the  frame  of  a  paralytic,  break- 
ing his  youth  into  weakness  and  torture  and  starvation  and 
strengthlessness,  calling  his  manhood  into  the  fame  of  the 
world  and  crowning  him  with  the  great  masters;  it  had  been 
cruel  and  lavish  at  once,  taking  from  him  all  hapj^iness,  all 
knowledge  of  happiness,  all  consciousness  of  what  health  could 
mean  or  freedom  from  pain  be  like,  all  sense  of  "  the  wild 
joys  of  living  "  and  of  the  liberties  and  heritage  of  manhood, 
taking  them  from  him,  from  the  hour  of  his  birth,  and  mak- 
ing every  desire  of  his  heart  an  unending  pang;  yet — giving 
him  in  one  Art,  giving  him  with  the  eye,  and  the  ear,  and  the 
temperament  of  genius^  a  sovereignty  wide  as  the  world,  and  a 
treasury  of  beauty  that  could  only  be  closed  when  the  touch  of 
death  should  make  his  sight  dark  and  his  hands  motionless. 
Others,  beholding  him,  saw  but  a  pale,  shattered,  silent  crip- 
ple, with  great  wistful  eyes,  ever  seeming  to  seek  what  they 
never  found — a  man  whom  a  child  could  cheat,  whom  a  buffoon 
could  mock,  whom  a  stare  could  make  nervously  and  unbear- 
ably wretched;  but  others  had  come  to  know  that  this  man 
had  a  kingilom  of  his  own  in  which  he  was  supreme,  had  a 
power  of  his  own  in  which  he  was  god-like,  and  lived  as  far 
above  the  fever  and  the  fret  of  their  own  lives  as  the  stars 
move  above  them  in  their  courses,  lie  heard  what  they  never 
heard,  he  saw  what  they  never  saw;  and  to  Lulli's  subHme 
transcendentalism  the  whole  universe  was  but  as  one  chant  of 
God. 

As  his  gondola  glided  now,  he  was  looking  dreamily  up- 
ward :  he  was  in  Venice  because  the  young  Venetian  had  been 
arrested  for  singing  a  song  of  liberty  from  one  of  his  operas, 
might  be  imprisoned,  might  be  scourged,  perliai)s,  and  he 
came  to  save  her  from  chastisement,  or  to  insist  that  he  had  a 
right  to  share  it.  lie  knew  nothing  of  her  except  the  fact  that 
she  had  sulfered  through  sinking  his  music  in  detiance  of  the 


518  .  CHANDOS. 

usurpers;  but  he  had  a  lion-boldness  where  wrong  menaced 
weakness,  and  a  pure  chivalrous  instinct  conquered,  whenever 
it  was  needed,  the  shrinking  sensibilities  and  the  physical 
feebleness  of  this  man,  whom  other  men  had  called  for  three 
parts  of  his  life — a  fool.  The  buzz  and  the  fret  and  the 
money-seeking  crovvds  of  the  world  passed  by  him  unnoticed, 
unheard;  he  took  no  more  heed  of  the  stir  about  him  than  if 
he  had  been  a  palm-tree  set  in  their  midst,  and  they  thought 
him  a  fool  accordingly;  but  let  one  spark  from  the  flame  of 
wrong,  one  blow  from  the  gauntlet  of  tyranny,  fall  on  any- 
thing near  him,  and  the  entliusiast,  the  dreamer,  the  isolated 
visionary,  became  on  the  instant  filled  with  fire  and  with 
action.  And  for  this  yet  more  tiiey  called  him  fool:  the  man 
who  does  not  care  for  his  own  purse  and  his  own  palate,  but 
only  rouses  for  some  alien  injury,  what  is  he  but  the  Quixote 
of  all  ages? 

As  he  went  now,  to  welcome  to  Venice  the  one  friend  of  his 
life,  he  looked  up  at  that  towering  marble  and  the  blue  of  the 
cloudless  skies  above.  Above  a  lofty  archway,  out  of  an  oval 
casement,  with  her  arms  resting  on  the  jasper  ledge,  and  the 
umber  darkness  behind  her,  so  that  as  the  sun  fell  full  upon 
her  face  and  her  hair  she  was  like  one  of  those  old  master- 
pictures  where  the  golden  head  of  a  woman  gazes  out  from  a 
black  unbroken  surface  of  deepest  shade,  leaned  Castalia. 
Her  eyes  were  glancing  above,  following  a  flight  of  white 
pigeons  whose  wings  flashed  silver  in  the  light;  and  on  her 
face  was  the  look,  more  spiritualized  than  any  smile,  more  in- 
tense than  any  radiance,  more  hushed  and  yet  more  passionate 
than  any  words  can  paint,  of  that  happiness  which  is  *'  the 
sweetest  vintage  of  the  vine  of  life." 

Lulli  glanced  up  and  saw  her  there,  leaning  down  over  the 
dark  mosaics;  he  strove  to  rise,  ere  the  boat  had  swept  past. 

"  Valeria!" 

As  the  name  left  his  lips,  reason  and  memory  and  the  space 
of  years  were  all  as  naught;  he  was  back  in  the  days  of  his 
youth  and  his  poverty;  he  believed  that  his  lost  one  lived  un- 
changed, unaged;  with  the  warmth  of  Southern  suns  upon  it, 
and  made  richer  and  fairer  yet  by  that  higher  and  softer  light 
it  wore,  the  face  of  his  lost  darling  looked  on  him  once  more 
from  the  jasper  setting  of  the  Venetian  casement.  A  gondola, 
that  had  followed  him  from  his  dwelling,  glided  up  swiftly  in 
his  wake  and  came  side  by  side  with  his  own;  from  the  awning 
a  woman's  hand  was  stretched  and  touched  his  arm. 

"  Signor  Lulli,  one  word  with  you." 

He  uncovered  his  head,  with  the  instinct  of  courtesy,  and 


CHANDOS.  519 

turned  to  her;  but  his  thoughts  were  whh-ling:  what  he  had 
seen  seemed  to  him  like  a  resurrection  from  the  dead. 

"  With  me?     Whom  have  I  the  honor — V 

"  A  friend  to  you,  aud  to  one  you  lost.  Let  us  wait  a  mo- 
ment, there  in  the  shadow. "' 

The  speaker  who  had  arrested  him  leaned  from  beneath  her 
awning,  her  hand  lying  on  the  side  of  his  gondola:  he  could 
not  see  her  features,  but  her  voice  was  very  melodious  and 
low. 

"  There  was  once  a  life  that  was  very  dear  to  you  in  the  old 
days  at  Aries?" 

He  trembled  violently;  his  frame  was  very  feeble,  and  his 
heart  had  dwelt  so  long  on  this  one  stolen  treasure,  had  so 
long  abandoned  all  hope  that  its  spoiler  or  its  refuge  could 
ever  be  known,  that  the  thought  of  touching  at  last  the  secret 
buried  so  long,  overcame  him,  as  when  they  come,  at  last, 
upon  the  gold  vein,  the  toil-worn  and  heart-sickened  gold- 
searchers  are  beaten  with  their  joy. 

"Dear  to  me?  Yes,  God  knows!  You  bring  tidings  of 
Valeria?" 

She  whose  form  was  lost  in  the  shapeless  folds  of  a  Carmel- 
ite's habit,  and  whose  face  was  obscured  by  the  hood  of  the 
order,  stooped  from  under  the  black  shade  of  the  gondola. 

"  Laud;  and  I  will  tell  you  alll  have  to_tell.''_ 

lie  obeyed  lier,  his  weakened  limbs  bearing  him  slowly  and 
with  labor  up  the  water-stairs.  Fronting  them  was  the  porch 
of  a  church — a  great,  gray,  dim,  noble  place,  with  marvelous 
carvings  of  time-browned  stone,  and  feathery  grasses  floating 
from  its  colossal  height,  aud  Titan  statues  that  looked  blind 
and  weary  down  from  their  niches  on  the  water  below,  as 
though  evil  days  had  fallen  on  them  and  on  their  Venice. 

The  entrance  was  wide  and  of  vast  depth,  a  lofty  cavern, 
roofed  and  walled  with  carvings  on  which  countless  hearts  aud 
hands  had  spent  their  life-time's  labor;  and  from  it,  in  the 
body  of  the  building,  were  seen  by  changing  glimpses,  as  the 
air  moved  the  vast  moth-eaten  fall  of  Geuoese  velvet  to  and 
fi'O,  glimpses  of  twilight  gloom  with  the  ethereal  tracery  of  the 
ivory  pyx  gleaming  white  from  the  shadow,  and  the  marble 
limbs  of  a  crucified  Christ  nailed  against  adark  j^illarof  Sienna 
marble.  She  motioned  him  to  rest  on  the  stone  bench  within 
the  jiorch,  and  stood  herself  beside  him.  lie  never  asked  her 
who  she  was;  he  never  thought  of  her  save  as  one  who  knew 
Valeria;  her  religious  habit  made  her  sacred  in  his  eyes,  and 
his  soul  held  but  one  thought — the  fate  of  the  one  lost  to  him. 
His  eyes  sought  the  Carmelite's  with  longing  anxiety. 


520  CHANDOS. 

"  Speak  now!— speak  in  one  word,  if  you  can.  Where  iu 
Valeria?" 

"Dead." 

The  word  was  spoken  ver}^  gently,  but  it  dealt  him  a  keen 
blow;  though  he  had  long  said  that  she  was  dead  to  him — said 
it  in  tlie  bitterness  of  his  soul  when  he  had  first  heard  of  her 
flight  to  dishonor— he  had  unconsciously  cherished  hope  that 
some  day,  ere  it  should  be  too  late,  he  would  find  her. 

"Dead?"  he  murmured;  "and  witliout  one  word  for  me! 
But  that  face  yonder? — it  was  hers!" 

His  heart  was  full,  and  he  spoke  on  its  impulse;  he  never 
remembered  that  he  addressed  a  stranger,  he  only  knew  that 
he  spoi^-e  to  one  who  might  give  him  some  link  with  his  long- 
broken  past;  his  mind  was  giddy;  his  love  for  Valeria,  his 
loathing  of  her  shame,  were  waiiened  in  all  their  first  iiitensity; 
his  life  had  been  entirely  uneventful,  and  the  few  things  that 
had  marked  it  held  him  forever,  as  they  could  never  have  held 
a  life  of  action. 

"  She  brings  you  some  memory?"  pursued  his  questioner. 
The  voice  was  subdued,  and  yet  had  a  certain  imperious  com- 
mand in  it  that  would  not  be  resisted  and  was  unaccustomed 
to  delay  as  to  disobedience.  The  eyes  of  the  cripple  turned 
with  pathetic  entreaty  upon  her. 

"  You  must  know  that  she  does,  or  why  speak  to  me  of  her? 
Whoever  you  are,  whoever  she  be,  tell  me,  for  the  love  of 
mercy.     You  know  the  fate  of  Valeria?" 

"  She  whom  you  now  saw  is  Valeria's  daughter. " 

Tlie  ProvengaFs  face  flushed  scarlet,  his  eyes  lighted  with 
an  infinite  tenderness,  that  flashed  and  darkened  into  the  fiery 
wrath  that  had  used  to  arise  in  them  against  the  unknown 
lover  of  the  last  of  his  name. 

His  teeth  set;  his  hands  clinched. 

*' Her  daughter?     My  God!    And /^e— " 

"  He— led  Valeria  where  dishonor  was  forgotten  in  reckless- 
ness, and  shame  was  lost  in  diamonds  and  wine  and  evil  laugh- 
ter. " 

The  fury  of  his  Southern  blood  dyed  his  face  and  lightened 
in  his  eyes;  tbe  stab  of  the  disgrace  to  his  name,  long  en- 
nobled by  art  and  long  pure  from  the  faintest  taint,  smote 
him  as  keenly  as  in  the  first  moment  when  he  had  learned 
Valeria's  fate;  the  old  vengeance  that  he  had  vowed  against 
her  lover  rose  in  him,  black  as  night;  his  breath  came  short 
r.nd  stifled;  the  hand  that  drew  sucli  aerial  and  tender  melo- 
dies from  the  keys  clinched  as  though  ready  to  do  avengmg 
t\'ork. 


CHANDOS.  521 

"  His  name?"  he  said.  It  was  but  a  whisper;  yet  a  vibra- 
tion ran  through  it  that  told  without  words  the  strength  which 
this  frail  and  suffering-worn  cripple  would  find  against  the 
spoiler  and  polluter  of  the  only  life  round  which  his  memory, 
his  imagination,  and  his  heart  had  ever  woven  the  fair,  if  the 
vain,  dreams  of  love. 

She  was  silent. 

"  His  name?"  he  said,  with  an  imperious  force  that  rang 
through  the  silence.  His  eyes  dilated  and  flashed  fiery  gleams 
from  their  black  soft  sweetness;  his  whole  frame  was  instinct 
with  the  vivid  energy  of  the  manhood  that  leaped  into  sudden 
power  under  the  toucli  of  wrong,  at  the  power  which  came 
into  his  hands  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  hopeless  and  silent 
years. 

"  Can  you  bear  its  telling?"  she  said,  gravely. 

"  I  will  not  bear  its  denial.  His  name?  and  may  my  worst 
vengeance  light — " 

"Hush!"  She  lifted  her  hand  to  silence  him  ere  the  im- 
precation was  breathed.     "  You  know  not  whom  you  curse. '^ 

"  Nor  care!  If  he  live,  my  hate  shall  find  him.  Feeble 
and  womanish  and  worthless  as  my  limbs  are,  they  shall  have 
strength  in  them  to  track  him  wherever  he  hides,  and  teach 
him  that  one  still  lives  who  can  remember  and  avenge  her. 
His  name?" 

*'  Wait!    Be  calmer  ere  you  hear  it." 

"  Calmer!  when  her  child  lives  there?" 

"  Yes.  Her  child  knows  nothing  of  her  parentage;  not- 
"what  that  parentage  is  can  I  well  teil.  Valeria's  life  grew 
very  evil." 

The  dark  blood  grew  purple  over  Lulli's  delicate  features, 
his  lips  turned  white  as  death;  he  suffered  excruciatingly;  no 
iioble  was  more  tenacious  of  the  honor  of  his  name  than  he. 

"  Speak!"  he  said,  hoarsely.  '  Who  was  her  tempter? 
"Who  lured  her  first  to  her  sin?" 

"  Wait!  Hear  her  history  first.  She  was  a  beautiful,  heart- 
less, wayward,  unscrupulous  woman,  to  whom  honor  was 
nothing,  to  wliom.  levity  and  shame  were  sweet. " 

"  Ho  made  her  that,  if  ever  she  became  it.  The  greater, 
then,  his  crime.     His  name?" 

"  Patience:  do  not  hasten  your  own  bitterness." 

"  I  hasten  to  end  it.  It  can  only  be  quenched  in  venge- 
ance." His  hand  knit  nervously,  the  long,  fair,  woman-like 
fingers  trembling  as  though  in  longing  to  hold  the  weapon  of 
his  chastisement. 

"  She  lived  for  awhile  in  sinful  magnificence;  but  she  died 


523  CHANDOS. 

in  the  utmost  poverty,  in  a  Tuscan  village.  It  is  a  commou 
Me." 

He  shook  in  his  whole  frame  as  he  heard. 

"And  then  you  bid  me  withhold  my  curse?  She  died  in 
Y/ant.  after  a  short,  shameful  life  of  gilded  vice?  JVo  curse  is 
wide  enough  to  reach  him,  if  he  drove  her  to  thst  infamy/' 

"  It  was  scarce  his  fault:  she  loved  the  fatal  power  of  her 
beauty  but  too  well.  She  died  at  Fontane  A  morose:  if  you 
need  a  witness,  it  is  here."  She  stretched  out  to  him  a  small, 
silver,  heart-shaped  relic-box,  worn  and  almost  valueless,  on 
which  were  rudely  graven  the  words,  "Valeria  Lulli. '*  A 
moan  broke  from  him  as  he  saw  it;  his  face  grew  white,  his 
eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"  Oh,  God!  I  gave  her  this  myself;  she  was  a  child  then^a 
child  so  beautiful,  so  innocent!"  His  voice  sunk,  his  head 
drooped;  the  sight,  the  touch,  of  the  little  relic  struck  him  to 
the  heart;  the  hour  of  its  gift  came  back  on  him  as  though 
lived  but  yesterday — the  hour  when,  with  many  a  denial  of 
self,  he  had  treasured  up  coins  till  he  had  bought  the  thing 
that  had  been  the  wish  of  her  heart,  and  slung  it,  as  his 
recompense,  round  the  fair  throat  of  the  laughing  child,  who 
paid  him  with  her  kisses. 

"  She  left  it,  on  her  death-bed,  with  a  contadina  for  me.  I 
had  known  her  in  days  evil  to  us  both.  There  were  a  few 
feeble  lines  to  me  with  it,  unfinished.  The  peasant  kept  it, 
telling  no  one  of  it,  and  thinking  it  of  value  for  its  holiness, 
till  a  few  months  ago,  when  the  child  Castalia  was  lost  from 
Fontane,  the  woman^s  conscience  woke,  and  she  sent  it  to  me. 
I  have  left  the  world;  I  am  in  a  religious  order  now;  thus  it 
was  long  in  finding  me.  Once  received,  and  hearing  also  for 
the  only  time  of  this  young  girl's  life,  my  first  wish  was  to 
seek  out  you,  and  leave  you  to  become,  if  you  should  choose, 
the  avenger  of  the  dead,  the  protector  of  the  living." 

The  words  had  a  pathetic  and  solemn  earnestness.  Lulli 
bowed  his  head,  and  pressed  his  lips  on  the  silver  heart. 

"  I  swear  to  be  both,''  he  said,  simply.  "  And  7iow,  once 
more,  his  name?" 

"  Her  lover  was — Chandos!" 

A  cry,  such  as  that  which  men  give  on  a  battle-field,  broke 
from  him — a  cry  of  torture. 

"  It  is  false!  false  as  hell!"  he  swore,  in  the  agony  of  his 
passion.  "  No  lie  ever  touched  his  lips;  no  treachery  ever 
belonged  to  him. " 

"No,"  said  the  Carmelite,  gently;  "you  are  right.  Bat 
Valeria  Lulli  was  onlv  known  to  hiin  as — Flora  de  I'Orme." 


CHANDOS.  523 

The  Provencal's  attenuated  form  seemed  suddenly  to  shrink 
and  wither  and  lose  all  life  as  he  heard;  the  name  came  back 
on  his  memory  after  long  oblivion  of  it;  he  had  used  to  hear  it 
in  tliose  days  that  were  gone,  the  name  of  the  magnificent, 
reckless,  extravagant  lionne  who  had  wasted  her  lover's  gold 
right  and  left,  and  given  but  a  mocking  laugh  at  his  ruin. 

"  He  met  her  in  Aries,"  pursued  the  voice  of  his  compan- 
ion, with  a  gentle  pity  in  its  intonation.  "  She  left  Aries  with 
him.  She  was  known  to  him  only  by  her  nom  de  fantaisie. 
What  her  life  became  you  are  aware." 

He  scarcely  heard  her;  his  hands  had  clinched  on  the  stone- 
work; he  quivered  from  head  to  foot;  the  flanie  in  his  eyes 
had  died  in  an  anguish  beside  which  the  mere  fury  for  venge- 
ance was  dwarfed  and  stilled  as  he  gazed  down  on  the  silver 
reUc. 

"  Oh,  Christ!  have  pity.     I  swore  my  oath  against  Mm!" 

The  words  were  inarticulate  in  his  throat;  every  fiber  in 
him  thrilled  witli  the  fire  of  his  rage  against  Valeria's  tempter, 
and  every  debt  his  life  had  owed  bound  him  in  fealty  to  the 
man  whom  in  his  blind  haste  he  had,  unknowing,  cursed.  He 
would  have  died  willingly  to  spare  one  pang  to  Chandos,  and 
he  had  vowed  to  the  dead  and  to  the  living  to  know  no  rest 
till  the  work  of  retribution  should  be  accomi^lished.  He  loved 
with  such  loyalty,  such  faith,  such  honor,  such  self-oblivion, 
as  those  which  patriots  love  their  country,  the  one  in  whom  he 
had  found  the  succor  of  his  existence,  the  giver  of  every  earth- 
ly gift  that  had  redeemed  him  from  the  bondage  of  poverty 
and  pain;  and  in  him  he  must  now  forever  see  the  foe  on 
whom  he  had  sworn  to  wreak  the  wrongs  and  the  shame  of 
Valeria. 

The  man  to  whom  he  had  held  his  very  life  a  debt  to  be 
yielded  up  if  need  arose,  from  whose  lips  alone  he  turned  for 
the  sole  praise  he  heeded,  whose  liberal  and  royal  charity  had 
lifted  him  from  a  beggar's  death-bed  into  the  light  of  the 
world's  renown,  and  to  whom  his  heart  had  clung  more  ten- 
derly and  truly  in  the  darkness  of  adversity  than  even  in  the 
splendor  of  fair  fortune,  was  the  injurer  against  whom  through 
the  long  course  of  so  many  years  he  had  cherished  his  silent 
and  baffled  hate ! 

The  dead  love  and  the  living  love,  the  bonds  that  bound 
him  to  her  memory  and  the  bonds  that  bound  him  to  his 
gratitude,  wrenched  hiiu  asunder — divided — agonized.  AH 
the  withering  weight  of  his  curse  had  been  breathed  upon  her 
destroyer;  all  the  fealty  and  adoration  of  his  nature  had  been 
lavished  upon  Chandos.      Choosing  betwixt  them,  ho  must 


524  CHANDOS; 

sin,  whichever  he  cleaved  to — be  faithless,  whichever  he 
elected. 

He  let  his  head  fall  on  the  cold  stone  arm  of  the  bench;  he 
knew  nothing,  felt  nothing,  was  conscious  of  nothing;  he  only 
seemed  numbed  and  iiilled  with  this  one  thought — the  feud 
that  rose  to  stand  forever  between  him  and  the  man  he  loved 
with  the  love  of  the  son  of  Saul  for  David. 

"  Oh,  God!'^  he  moaned;  "  and  I  eat  of  his  bread,  I  was 
saved  by  his  mercy  I"  ' 

The  Carmelite  looked  at  him,  then  gently  glided  away, 
leaving  the  silver  relic  in  his  hand.  He  never  heard  her  or 
remembered  her;  he  sat  in  the  gray  shadows  of  the  church- 
entrance  as  though  he  were  turned  to  stone,  silent  and  sense- 
less as  tlie  robed  statues  of  the  Hebrew  kings  that  had  kept 
their  motionless  vigil  above  while  the  centuries  passed  un- 
counted and  the  glory  of  Venetia  fell. 

He  could  not  have  told  how  long  or  how  brief  a  time  had 
swept  by;  he  had  sense  and  memory  for  nothing  save  the  one 
knowledge  that  had  come  to  him.  The  street  and  the  church 
were  alike  deserted;  nothing  aroused  him.  He  sat  there  as  in 
a  stujjor,  his  clasped  hands  clinched  above  his  head.  The 
lapping  of  the  water,  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  the  flight  of  time, 
were  all  lost  to  him;  the  great  pall  of  the  velvet  wavered  with 
the  wind,  the  gleam  of  the  white  Passion  was  seen  from  out 
the  gloom  within;  all  was  still,  and  he  had  no  «consciousness 
except  his  misery. 

A  hand  touched  his  shoulder;  the  only  voice  he  loved  fell  on 
his  ear. 

"  Lulli!  you  here?     What  ails  you:'' 

Passing  the  entrance  of  the  vast  deserted  church,  as  he  went 
to  seek  Castalia  with  the  morning  light,  Chandos  had  seen  the 
bent,  broken  attitude  of  grief  that  shrunk  even  from  the 
light  of  the  sun.  The  Provencal  started  and  shuddered  under 
the  touch  as  at  the  touch  of  flame;  he  staggered  to  his  feet, 
his  eyes  looking  at  his  solitary  friend  with  the  wild  piteousness 
of  a  dog  that  has  been  struck  a  death-blow  by  its  master's 
hand.  His  lips  parted,  but  no  sound  came  from  them;  he 
gasped  for  breath,  and  could  find  no  words;  there,  face  to  face 
with  the  savior  of  his  life,  with  the  spoiler  of  the  honor  dearer 
than  his  own,  the  force  of  the  old  love  borne  so  long,  the  force 
of  the  old  vengeance  so  long  sworn,  rose  in  twin  strength, 
wrestling  with  and  strangling  each  other. 

Chandos  gazed,  amr^zed  and  touched  with  a  vague  dread; 
he  laid  his  hand  on  Lulli,  and  drew  him  gently  within  the 


CHANDOS.  525 

hushed  aisles  of  the  church,  where  the  still,  brown,  sleeping 
shadow  slept  so  darkly,  only  broken  by  the  pale  gleam  of  some 
white  carving  or  the  glow  of  some  blazoned  hue. 

"  Lulli,  what  has  happened?  You  are  suft'ering  greatly. 
Tell  me.'' 

"  Tell  you— oh,  Christ!     How  can  I  tell  you?" 

"  Why  not?     Did  I  ever  fail  you?" 

The  words  had  the  gentle  compassion  that  he  had  first  heard 
when  he  had  lain  dying  among  the  bleak  and  rugged  hills  of 
Spain;  the  voice  had  ever  been  sweet  to  him  as  the  echoes  of 
music,  welcomed  as  the  weary  drought-parched  forests  wel- 
come the  stealing  breath  of  the  west  wind;  it  pierced  him  to 
the  heart,  it  killed  him  with  its  very  gentleness.  He  threw  his 
arms  upward,  and  his  cry  rang  shrill  and  agonized  as  a  wom- 
an's: 

"  Great  God,  have  pity!  Let  my  curse  light  on  my  own 
head!    I  knew  not  what  I  did!" 

Chandos  laid  his  hands  upon  his  shoulders  and  held  him 
there,  in  the  twilight  of  the  lofty  narrow  aisle,  with  the  Cru- 
cifixion looming  cold  and  white  out  of  the  mist  of  shade.  His 
eyes  looked  down  in  Lulli's,  where  he  stood  above  him,  and 
stilled  him  as  a  dog  is  stilled  by  its  master's  gaze. 

"  You  rave!     What  grief  has  befallen  you?     Tell  me. " 

A  convulsion  shook  the  Provengal's  frail,  yielding  form;  he 
loved  so  utterly  the  life  he  had  voted  to  vengeance,  the  life  on 
which  in  his  sight  rested  the  crime  of  Valeria's  fall,  of  Valer- 
ia's shame,  of  Valeria's  death. 

"  Grief!  grief!"  he  muttered,  in  his  throat;  "  it  is  sJiame 
— black,  burning,  endless  shame!  I  have  broken  your  bread, 
while  you  wrought  her  dishonor;  I  have  cursed  you,  when  my 
whole  life  is  but  a  bond  to  you  for  debts  beyond  life,  above 
life!  Which  is  the  worst  sin,  the  worst  dishonor?  /  know 
not!" 

"  Sin!  dishonor!     And  whose?" 

"  Hers,  and  mine,  and  yours." 

The  syllables  left  his  lips  stifled  and  slowly;  the  last  two 
barely  stirred  the  silence.  He  had  honored  the  man  to  whom 
he  spoke  them  as  though  he  were  a  deity;  he  had  obeyed  him 
as  though  he  were  a  king.  The  blood  flushed  Chandos's  face 
where  he  stood  in  the  shadows  of  the  arches. 

"Mine!  IS'o  other  living  should  say  that  to  me.  Mine! 
And  for  what?" 

Lulli  lifted  his  head:  his  wasted,  misshajDen  frame  gathered 
suddenly  vitality  and  vigor;  there  was  the  dignity  of  wrong 
svnd  of  manhood  in  the  carriacre  of  his  head. 


526  CHAKDOS. 

"  For  this: — you  were  the  lover  of  Valeria.** 

"  Of  Valeria?'* 

He  repeated  the  name  mechanically:  it  had  been  unspobscn 
between  them  for  so  long;  it  had  scarce  a  meaoing  on  his  ear. 

''You  brouglit  her  to  the  pomp  of  vice;  she  died  in  the 
misery  of  vice.  I,  your  debtor,  lived  on  the  alms  of  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  last  of  my  name.  Valeria  was  your  mistress — 
Flora  del' Orme." 

The  words  ran  cold  and  clear;  in  the  moment  of  their  speech 
he  had  forgotten  all  save  the  disgrace  that  had  made  him  the 
guest,  the  debtor,  the  alms-taker,  of  the  one  by  whom  she  had 
been  tempted  into  the  ruin  that  had  devoured  her  in  her 
youth.  Chandos  stood  silent,  his  eyes  fixed  on  Lulli's  face; 
back  on  his  thoughts  rushed  a  flood  of  forgotten  memories — 
memories  of  the  splendid,  vile,  pampered  beauty  who  had 
stooped  her  rich  Yips  to  his  wine  and  wound  the  scarlet  roses 
in  his  hair  in  many  a  careless,  riotous  hour — memories  of  the 
night  when,  in  the  studio  at  Clarencieux,  he  had  j^aused  before 
the  picture  of  Aries  and  been  haunted  for  a  moment  with  the 
doubt  of  that  which  he  now  heard. 

"Valeria!"  he  echoed,  slowly,  an  intense  pity  and  contri- 
tion in  the  tone  of  his  voice;  "  Valeria!     Is  it  possible?'* 

"It  is  true."  The  musician's  words  had  a  fierce,  dogged 
misery  in  them,  and  his  hand  clinched  on  the  silver  heart. 
"  A  Carmelite  has  given  me  her  story.  She  died  long  ago; 
but  her  wrongs  do  not  sleep  with  her.'* 

Chandos  looked  at  him  a  moment,  and  a  great  pain  passed 
over  his  face.  Had  this  man  also  forsaken  him?  He  could 
have  said  that  this  woman  had  been  shameless  ere  ever  he 
saw  her,  that  her  heart  was  false  as  her  form  was  perfect,  that 
gold  and  luxury  bought  her  love  as  it  would,  that  she  had 
been  vain,  merciless,  evil,  corrupt  to  the  core;  but  he  held  his 
peace,  since  to  speak  in  his  own  defense  would  have  been  to 
pierce  and  wound  the  cripple  who  still  believed  in  her. 

"  If  this  le  true,*'  he  said,  simply,  "  you  will  not  doubt  my 
faith  to  you,  at  least?  You  "will  know  that  I  was  as  ignorant 
as  you?  She  came  from  Aries — it  might  have  told  me;  but 
I  never  thought  that  she  had  other  name  than  that  by 
which  she  called  herself.  You  know — you  must  know — that 
ahe  vilest  thing  on  earth  should  have  been  sacred  to  me  had 
I  been  told  you  heeded  it.** 

"  I  believe!  Nothing  but  truth  was  ever  on  your  lips.  Yet 
none  the  less  were  you  her  lover,  her  tempter,  her  destroyer; 
none  the  less  does  the  curse  of  her  shameless  life,  of  her  bond- 
age to  evil,  lie  with  you — you  alone.  ** 


CHANDOS.  52? 

He  spoke  hoarsely:  liis  hand  was  clinched  on  the  reh'c,  his 
head  was  lifted,  his  eyes  flashed,  and  over  the  spiritual  fairness 
of  his  face  the  darkness  of  avenging  hatred  gathered. 

Chandos  looked  at  him,  and  a  slight,  quick  sigh  escaped 
him. 

"You  too!"  he  said,  involuntaril}'.  "  Well,  the  wrong  I 
did  you  was  in  ignorance:  if  it  must  part  us,  let  us  part  in 
peace." 

To  the  man  who  had  loved  him,  as  to  the  enemy  who  had 
betrayed  him,  he  alike  never  quoted  the  claim  of  the  jiast, 
never  argued  the  one  reproach,  "  I  served  you."  But  in  the 
words  there  was  a  weariness  beyond  all  speech,  there  was  the 
et  iu,  Brute,  which  once  had  pierced  even  the  adamant  of  his 
traitor's  hate;  and  it  cut  to  the  heart  of  the  hearer  deep  as  a 
scourge  cuts  into  the  bared  flesh;  its  very  gentleness  rebuked 
him  with  the  keenest  reproach  that  could  have  pierced  him. 
His  life-long  debt,  his  subject  reverence,  his  deathless  grati- 
tude, his  loyal  love  for  the  man  by  whose  mercy  he  was  still 
amidst  the  living,  and  by  whose  aid  the  creations  of  his  genius 
had  been  given  their  place  and  their  name  among  men,  rushed 
back  on  his  memory  in  a  tide  that  swept  aside  the  passions  of 
the  hour  and  broke  asunder  the  chains  of  his  oath.  He  seemed 
to  himself  vile  as  any  ingrate  that  ever  stabbed  the  heart  of  his 
benefactor.  The  moment  of  supreme  temptation  had  come  to 
him,  the  test  that  should  prove  whether  he  was  as  others  were 
— loyal  only  whilst  the  gift  of  generous  service  bound  him, 
faithless  and  without  memory  the  instant  that  ordeal  came. 
The  hour  w^as  here  for  which  he  had  often  longed,  the  hour 
that  could  try  the  truth  of  his  allegiance,  and  in  it  he  had 
been  wanting. 

All  the  tenderness  of  his  nature,  all  the  remorse  of  his 
heart,  went  out  in  wretchedness  to  the  man  whom  he  had 
arraigned  and  i;pbraided  and  wounded  as  though  no  debt  of 
life,  no  years  of  charity  and  pity  and  succor,  had  stood  between 
them;  he  had  no  thought  left  except  the  sin  of  his  own  un- 
worthiness.  He  bowed  down  at  Chandos's  feet,  his  face  sunk 
on  his  hands,  his  supplication  passionate  with  all  the  swift 
and  mobile  emotion  of  his  nation  and  his  temperament. 

"  Monseigneur,  forgive  me!  I  knew  not  what  1  said.  I 
swore  an  oath  before  Heaven  to  avenge  her,  but  I  break  it  now 
and  forever  if  it  must  light  on  you.  Let  my  curse  recoil  on 
my  head;  let  the  weight  of  my  forsworn  words  be  on  my  life; 
let  me  forsake  the  dead  aiul  abjure  my  bond.  Better  any 
crime  than  one  thought  of  bitterness  to  you!  Forgive  me, 
for  the  pity  of  God,  what  the  vileness  of  my  passion  spoke. 


538  CHAKDOS. 

If  you  killed  me  now  with  your  own  hand,  you  would  have 
right,     /should  be  bound  to  let  my  last  breath  bless  you!" 

Wild,  incoherent,  senseless,  the  words  might  be,  yet  they 
were  made  rich  and  sweet  as  music  by  the  faithful  love  tliat 
spoke  in  them;  they  gave  full  recomjDcnse  to  Chandos  for 
many  weary  years  of  j)atient  faith  in  human  life  and  patient 
forbearance  with  its  traitors  and  time-servers.  Against  all 
trial,  and  though  all  suffering,  the  heart  of  this  cripple  was 
true  to  him;  in  his  creed,  the  one  fidelity  sufliced  to  outweigh 
a  thousand  Iscariot  kisses. 

He  stooped  and  raised  him  gently. 

"  i'orgiveness!  It  is  I  who  must  ask  it.  Whatever  debt 
you  think  you  owed  me  in  the  past,  you  have  paid  and  over- 
paid now." 

Lulli  stood  before  him,  his  head  still  sunk,  his  face  very 
white  in  the  gray  hues  of  the  darkened  aisles. 

"  No;  there  are  debts  which  we  can  never  pay,  which  we 
never  wish  to  pay,''  he  murmured,  faintly.  Though  his 
fidelity  had  stood  its  trial,  the  trial  was  not  less  terrible  to 
him:  in  the  man  he  loved  and  honored  he  still  saw  the  de- 
stroyer of  Valeria,  the  unknown  foe  on  whom  his  hate  so  long 
had  fastened. 

"  But  her  daughter?"  he  said,  suddenly,  as  the  remem- 
brance flashed  on  him — "  that  beantiful  child — here  in 
Venice?" 

"  Here?  Where?"  His  voice,  hoarse  and  rapid,  cut  asun- 
der the  Proven9aFs  words;  his  face  grew  livid,  a  hideous  dread 
possessed  him. 

"  The  daughter  she  left  in  Tuscany — the  young  girl — 
Castalia." 

"Hold!     Oh,  Heaven!" 

Chandos  staggered  forward,  as  he  had  done  when  the  bolt 
of  his  ruin  had  struck  him:  the  sweat  of  an  unutterable  terror 
was  on  his  brow;  the  agony  of  an  unutterable  guilt  devoured 
him. 

"  Her  daughter — hers  !" 

The  words  were  stifled  in  his  teeth;  he  could  not  breathe 
his  thought  aloud;  the  fire  of  a  love  whose  very  wish  was 
nameless  sin  consumed  him;  the  blankness  of  an  utter  deso- 
lation fell  on  him,  passing  all  that  his  life  had  known  of 
misery. 

The  Provencal  watched  him,  paralyzed,  silenced  with  a  grciit 
bewildered  fear;  he  swayed  hearily  back;  guilt  seemed  to 
thrill  like  poison  in  his  blood;  his  face  was  dark  with  the  flush- 


CHANDOS.  529 

ing  of  the  black,  stagnant  veins;  he  reeled  blindly  against  the 

eculpture  of  the  marble  Christ. 

"  Love  between  ms  /     Great  God!  what  horror!" 
******* 

With  the  mellow  flood  of  artificial  light  that  still  shone  there, 
instead  of  the  glory  of  the  risen  day  shed  about  her,  Heloise 
de  la  Vivarol  stood  before  her  mirror  in  the  dressing-chamber 
of  the  Venetian  palace  that  was  honored  by  her  for  a  brief 
space:  her  haughty,  delicate,  regal  head  was  lifted;  the  gray, 
heavy  serge  of  a  religious  habit  fell  back  from  tb.e  brilliantly 
tinted  hue  of  her  face  and  the  still  exquisite  grace  of  her 
form:  it  was  the  habit  she  had  worn  at  a  princess  Carnival 
ball,  shrouding  her  beauty,  for  once,  under  an  envious  dis- 
guise, and  iu  a  whimsical  caprice,  that  she  might  more  surely 
be  unknown  by  those  titled  maskers  with  whom  she  had  played 
the  carte  and  tierce  of  her  state-craft  fence.  By  mere  hazard, 
the  caprice  had  served  her  well;  her  subtle,  unei-ring  wit  was 
ever  served  well  alike  by  the  weapons  she  forged  and  the  ac- 
cidents that  favored  her. 

Now  her  glance  flashed  a  cruel  triumph  at  her  own  reflec- 
tion that  was  given  there  with  the  glow  from  the  silver 
branches  on  its  bright  hawk  eyes  and  on  its  arched,  smiling, 
mocking  lips.  She  had  waited  nigh  twenty  years,  but  she 
had  her  vengeance. 

"  /have  divorced  them!"  she  thought,  "  forever — forever! 
And  none  can  trace  my  hand  in  it,  suffer  as  he  may,  search  as 
he  will." 

And  none  ever  did. 

Her  art  was  perfect  as  Bianca  Capella's,  as  Caterina  de 
Medici's.  The  science  of  destruction  has  its  fair  apostles  and 
its  titled  proficients  now,  as  in  the  Cinque  Cento;  the  only 
change  is  that  their  poisons  now  kill  peace  and  honor  and 
fame,  and  spare  the  life  to  suffer. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

LIBEKTA. 

There  was  a  great  tumult  rising  through  Venice.  Swell- 
ing at  the  first  from  a  distant  quarter,  it  had  been  borne  nearer 
and  nearer  through  the  silence  of  the  city  of  the  waters,  the 
tumult  as  of  a  surging  sea,  as  of  the  roar  of  sullen  winds — the 
tumult  of  a  people,  long  suffering  and  launched  at  last  against 
their  oppressors.  The  sound  had  not  penetrated  the  depth  of 
the  church-aisles;    only  its  low  muffled  echoes  could  reach 


530  CHANDOS. 

there,  and  they  had  been  unheard  by  those  who  stood  in  it-i 
solitude,  lost  in  the  misery  of  their  own  passions.  In  the  clear 
golden  morning,  in  the  luxuriance  of  color  and  of  beauiy,  iu 
the  warmth  of  the  fragrant  air,  in  the  hush  of  the  tranquil 
streets,  revolt  had  risen  as  it  had  risen  in  the  great  northern 
hive  of  labor;  but  here  in  the  "  sun-girt  South  "  it  rose  for 
liberty;  there  in  the  gaunt,  smoke-stiiled  Black  Country  it  rose 
for  wages.  Venice  was  athirst  for  her  freedom;  the  north- 
men  had  been  hungry  for  ^o  many  more  coins  a  week. 

They  were  but  the  youths  of  Venice,  the  young  men  whose 
hearts  were  sick,  and  whose  lives  were  aimless,  like  the  life  of 
Leopardi,  the  chiklren  of  eighteen  or  twenty  summers,  whose 
blood  was  kindled  and  whose  souls  were  pure  with  patriot  fire; 
who  would  have  flung  themselves  awa}^  like  dross  to  cut  the 
fettering  withes  from  their  Venetia;  whose  ardor  thought  the 
world  a  tournament,  where  it  sufficed  to  name  "  Gnd  and  the 
Eight  ^' to  conquer  and  to  see  the  foe  reel  down;  who  fed 
their  eager  fancies  on  the  memory  of  Harmodius  and  Aris- 
togeiton,  and  who  refused  to  see  that  the  nations  of  their  own 
day  adored  the  Greeks  in  story,  but  called  a  living  patriot  an 
*'  agitator  "  if  he  failed,  and  sent  him  to  the  cell,  the  scourge, 
the  death  of  felons.  It  was  the  boyhood  of  Venice  that  had 
risen.  The  past  day  had  been  an  Austrian  festa  for  an  Aus- 
trian chief,  and  the  music,  the  laughter,  the  glitter,  the  salvos 
of  artillery,  the  wreaths  of  flowers,  all  the  costly  follies,  had 
driven  the  iron  deeper  into  the  souls  of  those  who  closed  their 
shutters  to  the  sound  of  revelry,  and  mourned,  refusing  to  be 
comforted,  desolate  amidst  the  insolence  of  the  usurper's  mag- 
nificence and  mirth.  The  festa,  following  on  the  arrest  of  a 
songstress  beloved  of  the  city,  who  had  been  seized  for  singing 
an  ode  of  liberty,  had  broken  their  patience  down,  had  driven 
them  mad,  had  made  them  believe  once  more,  in  their  old 
sublime  fatal  blindness,  that  a  pure  cause  and  a  high  devotion 
would  prove  stronger  than  the  steel  and  the  granite  of  mailed 
might.  They  expiated  the  error  as  it  is  ever  expiated:  thej 
were  made  the  burned-sacrifices  of  their  own  creeds. 

They  met  with  little  mercy:  in  the  sight  of  their  foes  they 
were  but  seditious  malcontents,  to  be  shot  down  accordingly, 
or  pinioned  alive  like  young  eaglets  taken  from  a  caravan 
cage.  The  soldiers  of  Austria  made  swift  work  with  them — 
so  swift  that  the  hundreds  who  had  risen  with  the  dawn  with 
the  shout  of  "  Liberta''  upon  their  lips  as  with  one  voice,  and 
the  noble  insanity  of  the  liberator's  hope  beating  high  in  their 
fearless  breasts,  were,  almost  ere  the  first  echo  of  the  chan^ 
had  rung  through  the  silent  highways  to  wake  the  slumbering 


CHANDOS.  531 

epirit  of  a  Free  Republic,  sliofc  down,  cut  down,  well-nigh  as 
quickly  as  seeding-grasses  fall  beneath  the  scythes — were 
driven  as  the  deer  are  driven  under  tlie  lire  of  the  guns,  yield- 
ing never,  but  overborne  by  the  w^eight  of  numbers  and  the 
trained  skill  of  veteran  troops,  never  losing  their  courage  and 
their  resistance  and  their  scorn,  but  losing  order  and  adhesion, 
and  seeing  their  young  chiefs  fall  in  the  very  moment  of  their 
first  gathering,  seeing  their  long-counted  enterprise,  their 
long-watched  ojjportuuity,  their  long-cherished  hope  of  union 
and  strength  and  victory,  fade  and  wither  and  perish  under 
the  upward  course  of  the  bright  morning  sun. 

The  tumult  had  been  brief;  the  chastisement  would  be  life- 
long for  such  as  lived  under  the  heavy  iron  pressure  of  the 
battalions  that  forced  them  down  through  the  mitraille  of  the 
balls  that  hissed  along  the  brown,  still  waters  and  shook  the 
echoes  of  the  mighty  palaces.  They  were  young,  they  were 
nobly  trained;  they  chose  death  rather  than  life  in  a  prison- 
cell  with  a  convict  gang,  than  the  shame  of  the  gyves  and  the 
scourge.  One  band  of  them,  some  hundred,  fought  inch  by 
inch,  step  by  step  their  backward  passage  into  the  great  porch 
of  l,he  church,  into  the  dim  and  solemn  loneliness  of  the  aisles, 
gaining  breathing  from  their  enemies  for  awhile,  holding  aloft 
still  the  standard — the  colors  of  a  free  Italy. 

Suddeiil}^,  and  with  the  tempest  of  sound  without  as  sud- 
denly entering  there  with  the  forcing  open  of  the  large  bronze 
doors,  they  fell  backward,  with  their  faces  ever  to  the  foe,  into 
the  darkness  and  the  fcilence  of  the  edifice.  The  burst  of 
clamor  rolled  strangely  through  the  stillness  of  the  avenues  of 
stone;  the  conflict  of  the  world  seemed  to  pour  like  hell  let 
loose  into  the  sacred  husband  peace;  the  throng  of  hot,  heroic, 
fever-flushed,  tyranny-wrung  life,  with  the  vivid  colors  of  the 
bannner-folds  Hung  high  above  their  ardent,  sun-warmed 
faces,  filled,  as  though  they  had  sprung  from  the  sealed  tombs 
where  the  great  of  Vcnetia  lay  dead,  the  gray,  cavernous 
gloom  of  the  porch,  the  twilight  of  the  stretching  aisles,  the 
marble  space  beneath  the  marble  Christ.  Criieler  v/rong  had 
nevei  sought  the  refuge  of  sanctuary,  the  shelter  of  the  altar, 
the  shadow  of  the  Cross.  But  they  did  not  come  here  to  ask 
for  peace,  to  demand  protection:  they  came  to  die  with  their 
colors  untouche:!,  with  their  limbs  unfettered. 

The  bronze  gates  of  the  larger  entrance  were  forced  open  by 
their  pressure  in  the  very  moment  that  a  horror,  beside  which 
all  C'handoshad  ever  borne  looked  pale  and  jiainless,  rose  from 
the  depths  of  his  past  to  seixe  the  one  dream  of  revived  happi' 
tiess  that  had  c(jme  to  him.     In  the  first  instant  that  its  blow 

9  -3a  half. 


538  CHANDOS. 

fell  on  him  he  had  no  sense  but  of  unutterable  loathing,  of 
sickening  despiiir,  before  the  abyss  of  unconscious  guilt  that 
had  yawned  beneath  him — no  consciousness  but  of  the  living 
love  that  burned  in  him  passionate  as  tbe  love  of  his  earliest 
years,  and  the  dead  love  that  made  it  hopeless  and  forbidden 
and  accursed,  that  made  it  a  sin  before  which  all  his  life  shud- 
dered and  recoiled,  that  made  each  kiss  of  her  lips  poison,  each 
word  of  his  tenderness  crime.  As  the  thunder  from  the  streets 
smote  his  ear,  and  the  flood  of  the  daylight  poured  in,  he  was 
shaken  from  his  trance  of  misery  as  men  are  started  from  a 
nightmare;  his  eyes  were  blood-shot,  his  face  flushed  red,  his 
limbs  shook;  he  was  blind  and  deaf,  he  knew  neither  where  he 
was  nor  who  had  spoken;  but  his  hands  fell  heavily  on  the 
shoulders  of  Lulli,  swaying  him  backward. 

"It  is  false!  Devils  have  forged  the  lie  I — not  the  first 
forged  to  me.  Castalia — her  child — mineJ  God!  such  horror 
could  not  be.  Do  you  know  what  she  was? — a  shameless, 
loveless,  profligate  woman,  a  vampire,  whose  thirst  was  gold 
— a  Delilah,  who  stole  her  lover's  strength  to  shear  him  of  all 
value.  Castalia  sprung  from  lier'^  It  is  a  lie,  I  tell  you, 
coined  to  pollute  and  to  divorce  from  me  the  fairest  thing  that 
ever  lived  or  loved  me!'' 

Lulli  stared  fear-stricken  in  his  face. 

"  Loved  you?"  he  echoed;  "  loved  youV 

"  Ay,  loved  me  as  I  was  never  loved.  And  you  tell  me  a 
life  so  pure  as  that  was  born  from  a  courtesan!  You  tell  me 
that  I— I—" 

The  words  died  in  his  throat;  he  could  not  shape  in  them 
the  ghastly  thought  that  he  flung  from  him  as  men  fling  off 
an  asp's  coil  about  their  limbs.  He  gasped  for  breath,  where 
he  stood  there  above  the  man  who  had  brought  this  lemur 
from  his  past:  there  was  the  ferocity  of  a  maddened  beast  in 
him. 

The  bronze  doors  were  burst  open;  the  shock  of  the  firing 
without  pealed  through  the  stillness;  the  throng  of  the  young 
Loldiers  poured  in.  They  saw  him — him  to  whom  they  had 
rendered  the  homage  of  their  song  of  liberty  in  the  summer 
night  of  a  few  years  past — and  the  echoes  of  the  vaulted  roof 
rang  again  with  one  shout,  one  Viva  to  his  name. 

They  knew  his  face  well — it  had  long  been  among  them  in 
Venice;  they  knew  his  words  well,  that  in  the  poems  of  his 
early  manhood  and  in  the  deeper  thoughts  of  his  later  years 
had  borne  so  far  the  seeds  of  freedom;  they  honored  him  and 
loved  him. 

His  eyes  dwelt  on  them  awhile  without  light  or  sense;  he 


CHANDOS.  533 

felt  drunk  as  with  an  opiate  under  the  storm  of  disbelief  and 
sickening  terror  that  jDossessed  him.  They  filled  the  space 
about  him  under  the  crucifix  that  hung  aloft,  with  the  sadj 
passionless,  thorn-crowned  face  of  the  statue  bending  above 
from  out  the  darkness,  and  the  white  limbs  stretched  in  mar- 
tyrdom. The  folds  of  the  standard  streamed  above  the  crowd 
of  upturned  faces  with  the  glow  of  their  earliest  manhood  and 
the  resolve  of  their  settled  sacrifice  set  as  with  one  seal  upon 
all.  They  had  fallen  in  close  in  their  ranks,  and  stood  so  sLill 
in  unbroken  phalanx.  Alone  and  foremost  was  the  youth  with 
the  head  like  the  head  of  a  Gabriel,  who  had  spoken  in  the 
summer  eve  the  gratitude  of  Venice  to  the  teacher  and  the 
lover  of  liberty.  Their  weapons  were  in  their  hands,  and 
their  blood  poured  from  their  wounds  on  the  black  mosaic 
pavement  worn  by  priestly  feet.  Some  had  their  death-wound, 
and  knew  it;  but  they  only  pressed  their  hand  closer,  to  stay 
for  a  moment  the  stream  that  carried  life  with  it,  and  they 
looked  with  a  smile  to  his  face. 

One — a  child  in  years,  scarcely  seventeen,  with  the  flushed 
fair  features  of  childhood  still — stooped  and  touched  his  hand 
with  a  kiss  of  homage. 

"  Signore,  wait  and  see  how  we  can  die;  see  we  do  not  dis- 
honor your  teaching." 

The  simplicity  of  the  words  pierced  his  heart;  through  the 
"wreck  of  his  own  misery,  through  the  sirocco  of  his  own  pas- 
sions, they  came  to  him  with  the  weary,  eternal  sigh  of  that 
humanity  which,  however  it  had  deserted  him,  he  had  never, 
in  requital,  forsaken.  Death  would  have  laid  its  seal  ujjou 
his  lips,  and  chained  his  hand,  and  veiled  his  sight,  ere  ever 
he  v/ould  be  cold  to  the  sufferings  of  his  fellow-men,  silent  to 
the  prayer  of  the  peoples. 

That  love,  unswerving  and  unchilled,  for  mankind,  which 
had  given  so  noble  a  glow  to  the  dreams  of  his  youth  and 
filled  with  so  gentle  a  patience  the  temper  of  his  later  years, 
survived  in  him  now  amidst  all  the  desolation  of  his  fate,  all 
tlie  horror  that  glided  from  the  shadows  of  his  past  and  seized 
the  one  hope  left  him.  As  the  heart  of  Vergniaud  was,  to  the 
last  on  the  scafTold,  witli  the  human  life  in  vvhi(;h  he  had 
placed  too  sublime  a  faitli,  for  which  he  had  dreamed  of  too 
sublime  a  destiny,  so  his  heart  was  still,  even  in  his  own  tort- 
ure, with  those  young  lives  self-given  up  to  slaughter,  "i'lio 
boy's  touch  roused  him;  he  looked  at  the  heaving  mass  that 
pressed  about  him,  at  the  jiale,  brave  faces  that  turned  to  him 
with  one  accord  in  the  gloom  of  the  aisle,  lie  saw  at  a  glance 
they  were  there  as  sheep  are  hemmed  into  the  shambles;  he 


534  CHANDOS. 

divined  what  follj  had  brought  them — folly,  nobler,  perhaps, 
than  some  prudential  wisdom.  He  pressed  forward  into  their 
van  on  the  simple  instinct  of  their  defense,  while  they  fell  back 
and  made  way  for  him,  watching  him  reverently  as  he  passed. 
He  had  loved  Venetia,  he  had  served  Liberty;  he  was  sacred 
in  their  sight.  In  the  front  the  standard  caught  a  beam  from 
the  golden  air  without,  and  was  wafted  higher  and  higher  by 
the  breath  of  a  free  sea- wind;  behind,  far  in  the  gloom,  the 
altar-lights  burned  dully,  raylessin  the  blackness  of  the  shadow 
shrouding  them — meet  symbols  of  the  clear  noontide  of  free- 
dom, of  the  midnight  mists  of  creeds  and  churches.  He  forced 
his  passage  to  where  the  banner  floated. 

'' Children,  children!  wliat  are  you  doing?  Why  will  you 
spend  your  lives  like  water?" 

The  youths  of  the  front  file,  the  first  rank  that  %vould  re- 
ceive the  shock  of  the  bayonets  or  the  fire  of  the  musketry  with 
which  the  soldiers  would  in  another  moment  come  to  drive 
them  down  into  obedience,  lowered  their  arms  as  guards  lower 
them  to  monarchs. 

"  J3etter  to  lose  our  lives  than  spend  them  in  usurpers' 
prisons!  Leave  us  while  there  is  time,  signore;  you  can  trust 
us  to  die  well." 

They  left  the  space  free — the  space  out  into  the  glowing 
sunlight,  into  the  fragrant  air.  He  stood  still,  and  motioned 
their  weapons  up. 

"  You  know  me  better  than  that." 

Their  eyes  filled;  he  had  lived  much  amidst  them,  and  his 
written  words  had  sunk  deep  into  their  hearts.  The  young- 
patriot  who  held  the  banner — held  it  with  his  left  baud,  be- 
cause the  right  wrist  had  been  broken  by  a  spent  ball — flashed 
back  on  him  an  answering  comprehension. 

"  We  know  the  greatness  of  your  nature — yes;  but  the 
greater  your  life,  the  less  should  you  expose  it  here.  There 
will  be  slaughter;  the  world  must  not  lose  you." 

He  heard  but  vaguely,  half  without  sense  of  what  was 
spoken;  his  life  seemed  on  fire  with  the  torment  that  possessed 
him — the  hideous  doom  from  wdiich  his  whole  soul  shud- 
dered. Instinctively  his  eyes  sought  the  musician;  the  look 
that  was  in  tliem  was  worse  to  LuUi  than  if  he  had  seen  them 
glazed  and  fixed  in  death. 

*'  Go  you,"  he  said,  briefly;  ""  I  wait  with  these." 

The  flush  and  light  that  only  stole  there  when  in  music  he 
lost  the  feebleness  and  the  pain  of  his  daily  being,  came  on 
Lulh's  face. 


^  CHAKDOS.  535 

" I  deserted  you  one  moment/'  he  murmured  low;  "not 
again — never  again!" 

Tlie  tramp  oi  the  Austrian  soldiery  came  nearer  and  nearer, 
ringing  hke  iron  on  the  stone  pavements  vrithout;  tlie  flash  of 
steel  glanced  in  the  sun  beyond  the  great  bronze  doors  of 
Cinque  Cento  arabasque;  the  arch  of  the  entrance  was  filled 
with  dark  faces  and  the  glitter  of  leveled  steel;  behind  were 
the  dim,  solemn,  majestic  aisles  of  the  church,  with  the  white 
Passion  gleaming  through  the  gloom,  and  the  ethereal  tracery 
of  the  pyx  rising  out  of  the  sea  of  shadow;  in  front,  hemming 
them  in  with  a  circle  of  bayonets,  and  blocking  up  the  lofty 
space  through  which  the  blue  sky  and  the  sunlit  air  of  the  liv- 
ing day  were  seen,  were  the  mercenaries  of  Austria. 

Some  touch  of  reverence  for  the  sanctuary  that  their  Church 
had  made  sacred  from  earliest  time  to  all  who  sought  the  ref- 
uge of  its  altars,  stilled  their  zest  for  slaughter  and  held  back 
their  weapons;  there  was  a  moment's  pause  and  silence.  The 
boy-patriots  only  gathered  closer  in  their  ranks,  and  looked 
out  on  the  bristling  line  of  rifles  in  the  sunlight  of  the  day. 
Chandos  forced  his  way  to  the  front,  and  stood  between  them 
and  their  foes. 

"  Oh,  children!  why  will  you  give  the  unripe  corn  of  your 
young  life  to  such  reapers  as  these?"  he  said,  passionately. 
"  You  serve  Venice  in  nothing;  you  but  drain  her  of  all  her 
youngest  and  purest  blcod!  AVhy  will  you  not  learn  that  to 
contain  your  souls  in  patience  for  awhile  is  to  best  perfect  your 
strength  for  her?  Why  will  you  not  believe  that  there  is  a 
world-wide  love  higher  even  than  patriotism — that  while  men 
suffer,  and  resist,  anywhere  upon  earth,  there  we  can  find  a 
country  and  a  brotherhood?" 

They  heard  in  silence,  their  young  faces  flushing;  they  knew 
that  he  who  spoke  the  rebuke  to  them  spoke  but  what  he  had 
himself  done — that,  under  exile  and  wretchedness,  he  had  not 
fled  to  the  refuge  of  death,  but  had  made  of  truth  his  king- 
dom, and  of  mankind  his  brethren. 

"  It  is  better  to  die  than  to  live  fettered!"  they  murmured, 
as  they  lifted  their  eyes  to  his. 

"  True!  But  when  the  freedom  of  a  nation,  the  deliverance 
of  a  people,  rest  on  our  bearing  with  the  chains  awhile,  that 
we  may  strike  them  off  with  surety  at  the  hist,  the  higher  duty 
is  to  endure  in  the  present,  that  we  may  resist  in  the  future. 
Malefactors  have  died  nobly;  it  is  the  greater  task  to  live  so." 

llis  voice,  rich  and  clear  with  the  music  of  the  born  orator, 
rang  through  the  silence  of  the  church,  moving  the  liearts  of 
the  young  Venetians  like  music;   and  stirring"  even  the  fierce 


536  CHANDOS. 

and  sullen  souls  of  the  German  soldiery,  though  to  them  tho 
language  of  its  utterance  was  unknown.  He  had  the  -power 
in  him°v/hich  leads  men  by  the  magic  of  an  irresistible  com- 
manil— the  power  that,  in  forms  widely  different,  his  enemy 
and  he  alike  possessed.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  world  he 
would  have  been  such  a  ruler  as  Solomon  was  in  the  sight  ct 
Israel,  such  a  liberator  and  leader  of  a  captive  people  as  Ar- 
miuius  or  Viriathus,  when  the  life  of  a  country  hung  on  the  life 
of  one  man,  and  fell  when  that  life  fell. 

The  Austrian  in  command,  to  whom  his  face  was  unknown, 
thought  him  the  leader  of  the  revolt,  and  wondered  w^ho  this 
chief  was  that  thus  swayed  even  whilst  he  rebuked  his  follow- 
ers.    He  lowered  his  sword  courteously. 

*'  Signore,  surrender  unconditionally,  or  wo  must  fire." 

C  hand  OS  stood  between  the  ranks  of  the  combatants,  un- 
armed, his  head  uncovered — behind  him  the  dark  hues  of  the 
paintings,  within  the  whiteness  of  the  sculpture  and  the  shade 
of  the  vaulted  aisles,  a  single  breadth  of  light  falling  across 
his  forehead  and  the  fairness  of  his  hair. 

"  I  can  not  dictate  surrender  to  them,  for  they  have  done 
no  crime,"  he  said,  briefly;  "and  to  shoot  them  down  you 
must  fire  first  through  me.  " 

The  Venetians  nearest  liim  pressed  round  him,  shielding  him 
with  their  weapons,  and  covering  his  hands,  his  dress,  his  feet, 
with  their  kisses,  in  the  vehement,  demonstrative  fervor  of 
their  Southern  hearts. 

"  Signore!"  they  shouted,  with  one  breath,  "  we  will  sur- 
render to  save  you.  Tou  shall  not  die  for  us.  We  can  find 
some  way  to  kill  ourselves  afterward!" 

He  put  them  gently  back;  his  eyes  rested  on  them  with  a 
great  tenderness. 

"  No:  you  shall  not  surrender.  I  know  what  surrender 
means.  Besides,  it  is  only  cowards'  resort.  Do  you  think  I 
am  so  in  love  with  life  that  I  fear  to  lose  it?  I  could  not  die 
better  than  with  you.'' 

As  the  words  left  his  lips,  through  the  ranks  of  the  soldiery, 
through  the  serried  lines  of  steel,  as  the  men  in  amaze  fell 
back  before  her,  and  she  thrust  aside  the  opposing  weapons  as 
she  would  have  thrust  aside  the  stalks  of  a  field  of  millet, 
through  the  radiance  of  the  day,  and  the  gloom  of  the  ribbed 
stone  arches,  Castalia  forced  herself  with  the  chamois-like 
swiftness  of  her  mountain  training  and  the  dauntless  courage 
that  ran  in  her  blood.  Before  the  Austrians  could  arrest  her 
she  had  pierced  their  i?halaux,  crossed  the  breadth  of  the  mar- 
ble pavement,  and  reached  Chandos,  where  he  stood  beneath 


CHANDOS.  53'/ 

ilie  sculiDture  of  the  crucifix.  His  face  grew  white  as  the  fac« 
Df  the  sculptured  Christ  above  as  he  saw  her. 

"Oh,  God!  what  lover' 

Involuntarily,  with  a  great  cry,  he  stretched  his  arms  out  to 
her.  At  that  instant  a  large  stone,  cast  over  the  heads  of  the 
soldiery  from  an  unseen  hand  behind  them,  was  hurled 
through  the  air,  and  struck  the  colors  of  a  Free  Italy  from 
the  grasp  of  the  youth  who  held  them:  he  reeled  and  dropped 
dead:  the  blow  had  fallen  on  his  temple.  As  the  banner  was 
shivered  from  his  hold,  the  folds  drooping  earthward,  Castalia 
caught  it  and  lifted  it  in  the  front  of  the  German  troops.  Her 
eyes  flashed  back  on  them  with  a  daring  challenge;  her  face 
was  lighted  with  the  glow  that  liberty  and  peril  lend  to  brave 
natures  as  the  sun  lends  warmth. 

"  Viva  la  Ixberta  !"  rang  in  the  clear  echo  of  her  voice  through 
the  cavernous  depth  of  the  church.  Then,  with  a  smile  that 
had  the  heroism  of  a  royal  fearlessness,  with  the  fidelity  of  a 
spaniel  that  comes  to  die  with  its  master,  she  came  and  stood 
by  Chandos,  her  eyes  looking  upward  to  him,  her  hand  lean- 
ing on  the  stafl:  of  the  standard.  Unconsciously,  in  the  vio- 
lence of  the  torture  that  consumed  him  at  her  sight,  her 
touch,  her  presence,  he  drew  her  to  his  breast,  crushing  her 
beauty  in  an  embrace  in  which  all  was  for  the  moment  forgot- 
ten save  the  love  he  bore  her,  save  the  love  that  sought  him 
even  through  the  j)ath  of  death. 

Eoused  by  the  echo  of  that  rallyiug-cry,  infuriated  by  their 
comrade's  fall,  seeing  her  loveliness  given  into  their  defense, 
the  Venetian  youths  sprung  forward  like  young  lions,  their 
swords  circling  above  their  heads,  their  hearts  resolute  to 
pierce  the  net  that  held  them,  or  to  perish.  The  Austrian 
raised  his  sword: 

"Fire!" 

Obedient  to  the  command,  the  first  file  drop)ped  on  one 
knee,  the  second  stood  above  them  with  their  rifles  leveled 
over  the  shoulders  of  the  kneeling  rank,  the  bayonets  were 
drawn  out  witli  a  sharp,  metallic  clash,  the  double  line  of  steel 
caught  the  morning  rays  upon  the  glitter  of  the  tubes:  every 
avenue  of  escape  was  closed. 

Chandos  stooped  his  head  over  her,  where  he  held  her  fold- 
ed in  his  arms,  to  shield  her  while  life  was  in  him. 

"  You  do  not  fear?" 

She  smiled  still  up  into  his  eyes;  she  saw  in  them  an  agonj 
great  as  that  which  the  sculptor  had  given  to  the  marble  agonjl 
upon  the  cross. 

"  I  have  no  fear  with  you/' 


538  CHANDOS. 

His  embrace  closeil  on  her  in  the  vibration  of  a  dying  man's 
farewell. 

"  Death  will  be  mercy  for  us  ! 

"With  the  sunlight  of  her  hair  floating  across  his  breast,  he 
stood  looking  straight  at  the  leveled  guns;  her  eyes  rested  on 
his  face  alone,  and  never  left  their  gaze.  With  his  arms  thus 
about  her,  with  her  head  resting  on  his  heart,  she  had  no  fear 
of  this  fate;  he  wished  it,  he  resigned  himself  to  it;  she  wa<? 
content  to  die  in  the  dawn  of  her  life,  with  him,  and  at  hia 
will. 

Guido  Lulli  stood  near  them.  He  was  forgotten — he  had  no 
thought  that  it  could  be  otherwise;  but  where  he  leaned  his 
delicate,  withered  limbs  on  the  sculpture  beside  him  his  63^68 
rested  calmly  on  the  circle  of  the  soldiery,  on  the  gleam  of  the 
rifle-barrels;  weak  as  a  woman  in  his  frame,  he  had  no 
woman's  weakness  in  his  soul.  He  had  forsaken  the  man 
he  loved  for  one  moment  in  life;  he  would  be  faithful  to  him 
through  the  last  pang  of  death. 

Tlie  sudden  crash  of  the  musketry  rolled  through  the 
silence;  the  white  thick  clouds  of  smoke  floated  outward 
to  the  brightness  of  the  day,  and  downward  through  the 
length  of  the  violated  church.  Castalia  never  shrunk  as 
the  boom  of  the  guns  j)ealed  above  her;  she  only  looked  up 
still  to  the  face  above  her.  There  was  not  a  sound,  not  a 
moan,  as  the  volley  poured  out  its  fire;  when  the  smoke 
cleared  slightly,  they  stood  untouched,  though  shots  had 
plowed  the  stone  above  them  and  beneath  them;  but  under 
the  white  sculpture  of  the  Passion  the  young  lives  of  Venice 
lay  dying  by  the  score,  their  \i])S>  set  in  a  brave  smile,  their 
hands  still  clinched  on  their  sword-hilts.  A  voice  rang  out 
like  Uiuiider  on  the  stillness: 

"  Brutes! — do  you  murder  in  cold  blood?" 

Thrusting  his  way  through  the  dense  crowds  of  the  en- 
trance, as  Castalia  before  him  had  thrust  hers,  Philippe 
d'Orvale  strode  through  the  soldiery  into  the  church,  felling 
down  with  a  blow  of  his  mighty  arm  a  rifle  that  was  leveled 
at  Chandos;  with  his  hair  dashed  off  his  forehead,  his  glance 
flaming  fire,  he  swung  round  and  faced  the  German  levies, 
grand  in  his  wrath  as  a  god  of  Homer,  "  So!  you  turn  the 
church  to  a  slaughter-house?  Kot  the  first  time  by  many. 
By  my  faith,  a  fine  thing,  to  shoot  down  those  brave  chil- 
dren!    Cowards,  tigers,  barbarians,  fire  again  at  your  peril!" 

The  passion  and  the  dignity  of  the  reprimand  stilled  them 
for  a  moment  by  the  force  of  surprise;  but  only  for  that,  only 
to  rouse  their  savage  ruthlessness  in  tenfold  violence.    Dressed, 


CHANDOS.  539 

in  one  of  his  Bohemian  caprices,  in  the  boat-dress  of  a  larca- 
rolo — for  he  loved  to  mingle  with  the  people  in  their  own  garb 
and  in  their  own  manner — and  but  dimly  seen  in  the  midst  of 
smoke  and  the  twilight  of  the  building,  they  failed  to  recog- 
nize him;  they  took  him  for  a  Venetian  and  a  revolutionist. 
Infuriated  by  his  words  and  by  his  forced  entrance,  the  Aus- 
trian in  command  gave  the  word  to  fire  again.  The  volley 
of  the  second  line  rolled  out  as  he  stood  in  the  midst  between 
the  soldiery  and  the  body  of  the  church,  as  a  lion  stands  at 
bay;  he  staggered  slightly,  and  put  his  hand  to  his  breast; 
but  he  stood  erect  still,  his  bold,  brilliant  eyes  meeting  the 
sun. 

*'  You  have  killed  me;  that  is  little.  But  kill  more  of 
them,  and,  by  the  God  above  us,  I  will  leave  my  vengeance  in 
legacy  to  France,  who  never  yet  left  debts  like  that  unpaid!" 

Then,  as  Chandos  reached  his  side,  he  reeled  and  fell  back- 
ward; he  had  been  shot  through  the  lungs. 

"  If  it  stop  the  carnage,  it  was  well  done,"  he  said,  as  the 
blood  poured  from  his  breast. 

Awed  at  their  work,  recognizing  him  too  late,  terror- 
stricken  to  have  struck  one  for  whose  fall  vengeance  might 
be  demanded  by  a  nation  that  never  slurs  its  dishonor  or  lets 
sleep  its  enemies,  the  xVustrians  in  command,  motioning  back 
their  brigades,  j^ressed  toward  him,  to  raise  him,  to  succor 
him,  to  protest  their  lamentation,  their  ignorance,  their  hor- 
ror. Chandos  shook  them  from  him,  and  swept  them  back, 
his  voice  hoarse  with  misery  as  he  bent  over  the  superb 
stricken  majesty  of  the  dying  man. 

''  His  blood  is  on  your  heads:  you  murdered  him!  Stand 
off!" 

Philippe  d'Orvale  had  known  that  his  death-wound  had 
struck  him  in  the  instant  that  the  ball  had  crushed  through 
the  bone  and  bedded  itself  where  every  breath  of  life  was 
drawn;  but  the  careless  laughter  of  his  wit,  the  fine  scorn  of 
the  old  noblesse,  was  on  his  face  as  he  looked  at  the  Austrians. 

"  So!  brave  humanity,  messieurs!  You  apologize  for  shed- 
ding my  blood  because  my  blood  is  called  princely;  if  I  had  been 
a  gondolier  you  would  have  kicked  my  corpse  aside!  No,  dear 
friend,  let  me  die.  No  good  can  be  done,  and  it  will  be  but 
for  a  moment." 

A  voiceless  sob  shook  Chandos  as  he  hung  over  him;  he 
knew  also  that  but  for  a  moment  this  noble  life  would  be 
"imong  the  living. 

The  thoughts  of  Philippe  d'Orvale  were  not  of  himself;  they 
were  with  those  children  of  Venice  who  were  perishing  from 


540  CHANDOS. 

too  loyal  and  too  rash  a  love  for  her.  His  ejes  gathered  their 
lion  fire  as  they  rested  on  the  Austrians;  his  voice  rang  stern 
and  imjoerious. 

"  If  you  regret  my  death,  give  me  their  lives/' 

The  officers  stood  mute  and  irresolute:  they  dared  not  re- 
fuse; they  dared  not  comply. 

"  Give  me  their  lives!''  his  voice  rolled  clearer  and  louder, 
commanding  as  a  monarch's,  "  without  conditions,  free  and 
untouched  forever.  Give  me  them,  or,  by  Heaven,  I  will 
leave  France  to  avenge  me.     Give  me  them,  I  say!" 

There  was  no  resistance  possible,  in  such  an  hour,  to  such  a 
demand,  they  submitted  to  him:  they  pledged  their  honor 
that  the  lives  he  asked  for  us  his  blood-money  should  be 
spared. 

"  That  is  well;  that  is  well,"  he  said,  briefly,  as  the  rush 
of  the  air  through  his  wound  checked  his  utterance,  where  he 
lay  back  in  Chandos's  arms  just  beneath  the  sculpture  of  the 
Passion.  "All  that  youth  saved!  No  shot  ever  told  better. 
Ah,  Chaudos!  do  not  suffer  for  me,  caro.  It  is  a  fair  fate — a 
long  life  enjoyed,  and  a  swift  death  by  a  bullet,  with  your 
eyes  on  mine  to  the  last.  Dieu  de  Dieu!  what  room  is  there 
for  regret?  I  am  spared  all  the  lingering  tortures  of  age. 
That  is  much!" 

"Oh,  God!— to  lose  you!" 

The  cry  broke  from  Chandos  in  an  anguish  mightier  far  than 
if  his  own  life  had  been  ebbing  out  with  every  wave  of  the 
blood  that  flowed  out  on  the  marble  floor.  He  had  lost  all 
else — and,  at  the  last,  this  life  he  loved  was  taken! 

Philippe  d'Orviile's  eyes  looked  up  at  him,  tender  as  a  wom- 
an's. 

"  CTiutl  If  /  be  contec:,  what  matter?  'The  king  will 
enjoy  his  own  again.'  You  will  take  from  your  fj-iend  dead 
what  you  refused  from  him  living.  Make  my  grave  in  Claren- 
cieux,  Chaudos — under  the  forests  somewhere — that  your  step 
may  pass  over  it  now  and  then,  and  the  deer  came  trooping 
above  me." 

"  Hush!  hush!    You  kill  me." 

Hot  and  bitter  tears  welled  into  Chandos's  eyes,  and  fell  on 
the  brow  that  rested  against  his  breast:  he  would  have  accepted 
exile  and  poverty  forever  rather  than  have  bought  the  joys  and 
the  wealth  of  a  world  at  such  a  price  as  this. 

Philippe  d'Orvale  smiled— the  sun-lit,  careless,  shadowless 
smile  that  had  been  always  on  the  lips  of  this  bright,  fearles;3 
reveler,  though  the  blood  was  pouring  faster  and  faster  out  as 
his  chest  heaved  for  breath,  and  the  chillness  and  numbness 


CHANDOS.  541 

of  death   were  stealing   over   the   colossal   limbs   that  were 
stretched  oa  the  marble  floor. 

"  Nay;  I  tell  you  I  am  fortunate.  My  roses  have  never 
lost  their  fragrance  yet,  and  now — I  shall  not  see  them  wither. 
Do  not  grieve  for  me,  Ernest;  it  is  well  as  it  is—very  well! 
Ah,  LuUi!  is  it  you?" 

He  stretched  out  one  hand  to  the  Proven9al,  v/ho  bent  over 
him  convulsed  with  the  unrestrained  impassioned  grief  of  his 
temperament;  it  seemed  to  him  strange  and  terrible  beyond 
compare,  that  this  mighty  magnificence  of  manhood  should 
be  laid  low  while  death  passed  by  his  own  strengthless,  pain- 
racked  frame  and  left  unsevered  his  own  frail  bonds  to  earth. 
An  intense  stillness  had  fallen  over  the  scene  of  the  carnage 
where  the  prince-Bohemian  lay  dyitig  in  the  broad  space  of 
the  arched  aisle:  the  soldiers  of  Austria  stood  mute  and  mo- 
tionless; the  young  Venetians  gazed  heart-broken  at  the  man 
who  had  given  his  life  for  theirs.  All  those  who  were  wounded 
lay  as  still  as  the  stiffened  dead  beside  them,  letting  existence 
ebb  out  of  them  with  the  same  fortitude  as  his.  The  tumult 
had  died;  a  stricken  awe  had  come  upon  the  multitude. 
Above,  in  the  twilight  of  the  dim  vaulted  vista  of  columns, 
the  free  color  of  liberty  still  floated,  catching  a  gleam  of  light 
still  on  their  folds.  Castalia  held  them  where  she  stood  look- 
ing down  on  the  first  death  that  her  eyes  had  ever  watched,  as 
the  purple  stream  of  the  blood  flowed  to  her  feet,  and  each 
breath,  as  it  convulsed  the  vast,  torn,  heaving  chest,  dea'.t  a 
separate  pang  to  her  as  though  her  own  life  went  with  it. 

The  glance  of  Philippe  d'Orvule,  growing  more  languid 
now,  and  losing  the  fiery  brilliance  of  its  gaze,  dwelt  on  her 
with  a  gleam  of  wonder  and  of  light. 

"  Who  is  that?"  he  asked,  as  he  raised  himself  slightly. 

She  knelt  beside  him,  holding  the  standard  still,  while  its 
bright  hues  drooped  on  the  marble. 

"  They  call  me  Castalia.  *' 

He  looked  at  her  dreamily. 

"Castalia!  Ah!  you  have  eyes  that  are  like  some  I  loved 
once.  I  loved  so  many — so  many!  Life  has  been  sweet — sweet 
as  wine.  Stoop  down  and  touch  mo  with  your  lips;  it  will  be 
a  better  assoilzement  than  a  priest's  chrism. " 

She  lifted  her  eyes  to  Chandos,  where  she  knelt  beside  him; 
he  bent  his  head  in  silence,  then  at  the  sign  from  him  she 
stooped  softly  nearer  and  nearer,  and  let  her  lips  rest  on  the 
French  prince's  brow  in  the  farewell  ho  asked. 

He  smiled,  and  touched  her  hair  with  his  hand. 

**  I  thank  you,  Ulle  enfant,"  he  said,  gently;  the  light  was 


542  CHANDOS. 

fading  fast  out  of  his  guze,  his  senses  were  fast  losing  all  their 
hold  on  earth,  as  wave  on  wave  of  his  life-blood  surged  from 
the  broken,  shattered  bones  of  his  breast.  He  lifted  himself 
slightly  with  a  supreme  effort,  and  the  sunlit  laughter  with 
which  he  had  ever  met  existence  was  on  his  face  as  he  met  his 
iAst  hour. 

*'  Your  foe  waited  for  the  '  Mad  Duke's  '  death!  Well,  we 
have  cheated  him:  he  will  see  the  rightful  lord  go  back  to  his 
heritage.  It  irked  me  reigning  there,  Chandos,  while  yo2i 
were  exiled.  No  Austrian  bullet  ever  did  a  better  stroke. 
Nay!  why  mourn  me?  I  have  drunk  the  richest  of  life,  and  I 
am  spared  the  gall  of  the  lees.  Your  hand  closer,  dear  friend. 
I  do  not  suffer;  it  is  nothing,  nothing!  Let  me  see  your  eyes 
to  the  end,  Ernest.     So! — that  is  well!" 

And  with  those  words  his  head  fell  back,  and  under  thp 
white  sculpture  of  the  Passion  Phillipe  d'Orvale  lay  dead. 


While  Venice  was  hushed  in  awe  at  the  greatness  of  the 
victim  who  had  fallen,  and  the  vengeance  of  tyranny  was  stayed 
in  obedience  to  his  last  wish,  the  Prince  who  had  died  for  the 
People  was  borne  with  reverent  hands  into  the  gloom  of  a 
state-chamber  of  his  own  palace,  and  laid  reverently  down, 
with  the  radiance  of  the  morning  shut  out,  and  the  gleam  of 
funeral  lights  burning  round.  A  pall  of  purple  velvet  covered 
the  limbs;  fine  linens  veiled  the  breadth  of  the  chest,  with  its 
yawning,  blood-filled  cavity.  The  face  was  still  left  un- 
shrouded,  with  its  fair,  frank  brow  pale  in  the  pallor  of  the 
wax-light,  the  luxuriance  of  the  curling  beard  flecked  with 
silver  threads,  the  eyelids  closed  as  in  a  peaceful  slumber. 
There  was  but  one  watcher  with  him.  Beside  the  bier  Chan- 
dos knelt,  motionless  as  the  dead,  with  his  forehead  resting  on 
the  hand  which  in  life  had  never  clinched  but  in  a  righteous 
cause,  and  which,  once  clasped  in  friendship  or  in  pledge, 
would  have  been  cut  off  sooner  than  have  let  go  its  bond. 
That  hand,  cold  as  ice,  and  lying  open  like  the  strengthless 
palm  of  a  child,  had  given  him  his  home,  given  him  more 
than  empires;  that  hand,  by  its  last  act  and  will,  had  restored 
him  the  one  longing  of  his  life,  had  summoned  him  from  exile 
to  the  honor  of  his  race  once  more;  that  hand  had  swept  aside 
a  score  of  years,  and  brought  him  back  his  birthright.  This 
gift  of  a  recovered  joy  such  as  dreams  sometimes  had  mocked 
him  with,  came  to  him  in  the  very  hour  that  a  horror  worse 
than  guilt  laid  his  heart  desolate.  One  desire  of  his  soul  was 
bestowed  on  him  in  the  verv  moment  that  all  others  were  laid 


CHANDOS.  543 

waste  and  banned  as  sin— one  resurrection  of  dead  hopes 
granted  him  in  the  very  moment  that  all  other  hopes  were 
blasted  from  his  hold.  It  was  his  once  more,  this  land  that 
he  had  never  forgotten,  this  thing  that  he  had  mourned  as 
Adam  mourned  the  forfeited  loveliness  of  paradise,  this  lost 
treasure  to  which  his  memory  had  gone,  waking  or  sleeping, 
with  every  flicker  of  green  leaves  in  morning  twilight,  with 
every  sough  of  summer  winds  through  arching  aisles  of  wood- 
laud,  with  every  spring  that  bloomed  on  earth,  with  every 
night  that  fell — and  it  was  his  only  when  the  one  friend  that 
had  cleaved  to  him  loyally  was  stretched  dead  before  his  eyes, 
only  when  the  poison  of  his  past  rose  up  and  turned  to  in- 
cestuous shame  the  love  which  had  seemed  the  purest  and  the 
fairest  treasure  that  his  life  had  ever  known!  He  knelt  there, 
where  the  daylight  was  shut  out  and  the  stillness  was  unstirred 
as  in  a  vault.  That  he  had  regained  his  birthright  by  the  seal 
of  eternal  silence  laid  forever  on  those  brave  lips  that  no  lie 
had  ever  tainted,  could  assuage  in  nothing  the  bitterness  of 
his  regret;  to  have  summoned  Philippe  d'Orvale  back  amidst 
the  living,  he  would-have  taken  up  forever  a  beggar's  portioii 
and  a  wanderer's  doom.  Where  he  had  sunk  down,  with  his 
arms  flung  over  the  motionless  limbs,  and  his  frame  shaken 
ever  and  again  by  a  great  tremor  as  the  scorch  of  passions  that 
he  had  been  told  were  guilt  thrilled  through  him,  a  woman's 
hand  was  laid  upon  his  shoulder.  As  he  started  and  raised 
his  eyes,  he  saw,  in  the  pale  silvery  shadows  of  the  death- 
lights  burning  round,the  gaze  of  Beatrix  Lennox  bent  upon  him. 

"Ah!  I  am  too  late,"  she  said,  wearily.  "I  am  always 
too  late  for  good:  for  evil  one  is  sure  to  be  ready." 

Her  voice  was  very  low;  she  stood  looking,  not  at  him 
but  at  the  noble  head  that  had  fallen  never  to  rise  again,  at  the 
mouth  that  still  wore  its  last  smile,  from  which  no  chant  of 
laughter,  no  melody  of  welcome,  would  ever  again  ring  out. 

Chandos  rose  and  stood  in  silence  also.  There  was  too  great 
a  wretchedness  on  him  to  leave  him  any  wonder  at  her  coming 
there,  at  her  forcing  her  entrance  into  the  state-chamber 
where  the  guards  without  denied  all  comers.  He  thoughti 
some  tie  might  bind  her  to  Philippe  d'Orvale's  memory:  he 
had  never  known  that  it  was  himself  she  loved. 

"  He  bad  a  lion's  heart,  he  was  true  as  the  sun,  he  never 
lied,  he  never  broke  a  bond,  he  never  failed  a  friend;  no  won- 
der the  world  had  no  name  for  him  but  '  Mad!'  "  she  said,  an 
her  voice  fell  on  the  stillness  of  the  funeral  chamber.  "  He 
died  but  four  hours  ago,  they  say;  and  I — was  those  four  hours 
100  late.     It  is  always  so  with  me!" 


544  cHAinJOS. 

"  He  was  clear  to  your'* 

She  smiled;  she  thought  how  closely  she  had  kept  her  own 
secret. 

"  No!  If  he  had  beeu,  do  you  think  I  could  stand  calmly 
here?  But  he  was  a  superb  gentleman:  he  died  superbly. 
The  world  has  few  grand  natures;  it  can  ill  spare  them.  Be- 
sides, I  have  much  to  say  to  you.'' 

"  Hush!  not  here." 

"  Yes,  here.  What  I  shall  say  is  uo  desecration  to  his  pres- 
ence. He  would  have  been  the  fir-st  ta  be  told  it,  had  he  lived. 
You  loved  him  well?" 

His  mouth  quivered. 

"  Who  was  ever  so  true  to  me? — loyal  and  generous  and 
chivalric  to  the  last!" 

He  could  have  thrown  himself  beside  the  bier  of  the  slaugh- 
tered man,  and  wept  as  women  weep,  when  he  thought  of  the 
smile  that  would  never  again  greet  his,  of  the  fearless  eyes 
that  would  never  again  unclose  to  the  waking  of  day. 

She  waited  some  moments;  then,  with  her  face  turned  from 
him,  she  spoke: 

"  Chaudos,  she  whom  you  love — " 

"  Spare  me  that,  for  God's  sake!" 

"  What!  is  she  false  to  you?" 

''  AYould  to  Heaven  she  were,  rather  than — " 

"  Eather  than  what?" 

He  shuddered. 

"  I  can  not  tell  you!" 

"  You  must — if  but  for  her  sake.     It  is — V* 

"  That  Valeria  Lulli  was  her  mother." 

*'  That  is  the  truth!     What  if  she  be?" 

"  What?  She  was  my  mistress — an  adventuress  who  came 
with  me  from  France — ' ' 

"  It  is  false!     It  is  basely,  utterly  false!" 

He  caught  her  hands  in  his. 

"  Prove  it,  prove  it! — and  no  saint  was  ever  merciful  as 
you—" 

"  I  can  prove  it.  Valeria  Lulli  gave  her  birth;  but  her  fa- 
ther— lies  there." 

He  drew  a  deep,  gasping  breath,  like  a  man  who  has  escaped 
from  the  close  peril  of  some  awful  death. 

''This  true?" 

"  True  as  that  we  live." 

She  turned  from  him,  that  she  might  not  see  his  face  in 
that  moment  of  supreme  deliverance.      There  was  a  long, 


CHAKDOS.  545 

breathless  silence^  the  silence  which  is  a  greater  thanksgiving 
than  any  words  can  utter. 

He  lifted  his  head  at  last,  and  his  eyes  dwelt  on  her  with 
a  look  that  rej^aid  her  for  twenty  years  of  unspoken,  un- 
requited love. 

"  Her  father — lie!     Oh,  God! — how  strange!" 

"  Yes,  it  is  strange.  And,  yet,  why  do  we  say  so?  Life  is 
full  of  tragedies  and  comedies  crossing  each  other  in  wilder 
mystery  than  any  fiction  fancies.  Months  ago,  in  the 
autumn,  you  bade  me  feel  a  woman's  pity  for  your  young, 
forsaken  Tuscan.  Well,  I  sought  for  her;  I  wished  to  knoiv 
if  she  were  worthy  you.  You  had  told  me  where  you  had  left 
her;  I  went  there  to  find  her  gone — lost  out  of  all  sight  and 
knowledge.  The  belief  of  the  people  and  of  the  priest  was 
that  she  had  fled  with  you.  I  knew  the  falsehood  of  that, 
and  I  set  myself  to  the  discovery,  first  of  her  history,  then  of 
herself.  It  took  me  long,  very  long;  but  at  last  I  succeeded. 
Women  rarely  fail  when  they  are  in  earnest.  We  are  patient 
limeurs  on  a  track.  The  priest  told  me,  after  long  con- 
ferences with  him,  that  her  mother  had  confided  to  him  a 
sealed  packet,  but  he  was  never  to  open  it  unless  some  immi- 
nent danger  assailed  the  child;  then,  and  then  only,  he  might 
read  what  it  held,  and  act  as  he  might  see  fit.  She  had  died 
without  confession — died  what  he  considered  impenitent.  He 
was  a  grand  old  man  in  his  creeds  of  duty;  he  had  never  vio- 
lated the  sanctity  of  the  seals  to  sate  his  curiosity  or  to  lighten 
his  charge  of  Castalia.  I  had  less  self-restraint.  I  persuaded 
him  that  the  moment  had  arrived.  He  was  very  hard  to  con- 
vince; he  considered  the  command  of  the  dead  woman  sacred. 
At  last,  however,  I  overcame  his  reluctance.  We  opened  the 
papers:  from  them  I  learned  that  she  was  the  daughter  of 
Valeria  Lulli  and  of  the  Due  d'Orvale.^' 

"  Valeria  had  been  his  mistress?" 

"  No,  his  wife;  but  she  had  disbelieved  that  she  was  so; 
hence  her  concealment  of  herself  and  of  her  offspring.  The 
account  of  her  life  is  very  incoherent;  written  as  women  write 
under  wrong  and  grief.  It  is  plain  to  see  that  she  was  pas- 
sionate, jealous,  doubtless  of  extraordinary  beauty,  but  of  a 
fervid,  uncontrolled  temperament — one  to  beguile  him  into 
hot  love,  but  soon  to  weary  him.  There  are  many  such 
women,  and  then  ?/o?^  are  blamed  for  inconstancy!  She  had 
left  Aries  because  persecuted  by  the  love  of  an  Englishman, 
Lord  Clydesmore — a  roue,  though  a  saint:  the  union  is  com- 
mon! She  went  to  Florence,  and  there  saw  Philippe  d'Orvale. 
He  heard  her  voice  in  a  mass  at  Easter,  and  sought  her  out. 


5i6  CHAHDOS. 

A  passion,  ardent  as  his  always  was,  soon  spruDg  up  between 
them.  Of  conrse  he  had  no  thought  of  marriage;  but  she  bad 
the  same  pride  that  Guido  Lulli  cherishes  so  strongly.  She 
would  not  yield  to  him.  Call  it  honor,  call  it  egotism,  which 
you  will;  in  the  end  she  vanquished  him.  The  marriage  was 
jjerformed  j)rivately,  and  remained  secret.  Eeasons  connected 
with  his  great  house  made  this  imperative  for  a  brief  while; 
but  he  kept  her  in  the  utmost  luxury  in  a  palace  of  his  own 
Como,  and  intended  shortly  to  announce  their  union.  It  is 
easy  to  see  by  her  own  confession  that  her  jealous  love  left 
him  little  jDeace,  and  must  have  been  unendurable  to  such  a 
temperament  as  his;  but  throughout  she  speaks  of  his  unvary- 
ing tenderness,  lavish  generosity,  and  sweetness  of  temper.  It 
is  conceivable  that  he  went  back  to  his  old  freedom  when  once 
the  restless  tyranny  of  her  passion  began  to  gall  him;  but  she 
never  hints  that  his  kindness  or  his  affection  altered.  He  left 
her  once  for  Paris,  intending  but  a  short  absence.  While  he 
was  away,  she  received  anonymous  letters,  telling  her  that  her 
marriage  had  been  a  false  one,  that  his  equerry  in  a  priest's 
guise  had  performed  it.  A  woman  who  had  read  his  nature 
aright  would  have  known  a  fraud  impossible  to  Philipjje 
d'Orvale;  but  she  was  very  young,  very  impulsive — at  once, 
as  I  think,  weak  and  passionate.  She  flew  to  Paris;  he  had 
gone  to  stay  with  you  at  Clarencieux.  She  knew  her  cousin 
was  there,  and  went  thitber  to  declare  her  marriage,  or 
arraign  the  duke  if  he  confessed  it  false.  She  was  his  wife, 
but  she  knew  so  little  of  D'Orvale  as  that!  In  the  Park  she 
was  met  by  the  lover  she  had  repulsed.  Lord  Clydesmore, 
Possibly  it  was  by  him  that  the  letters  had  been  sent:  that  we 
shall  never  know.  At  any  rate,  he  imposed  on  her  with  a 
great  show  of  regret  and  of  devotion,  told  her  that  all  the  world 
considered  her  Prince  Philippe's  mistress,  that  her  cousin  had 
cursed  her  as  a  dishonor  to  his  name,  and  that  she  might  see 
on  that  very  spot  how  utterly  D'Orvale  had  forgotten  lier. 
As  it  chanced,  the  duke  was  that  moment  riding  with  the 
Countess  de  la  Vivarol  and  other  ladies.  Clydesmore  drew 
her  where  she  could  see  them  without  being  seen.  She  heard 
her  husband's  laughter;  she  saw  the  beautiful  women  he  was 
with.  She  knew  so  little  the  worth  of  the  heart  she  had  won, 
that  she  believed  all  the  falsehoods  Clydesmore  poured  in  lier 
ear,  believed  in  D'Orvale's  faithlessness  and  in  her  own  dis- 
honor. Her  first  impulse  was  to  accuse  him  before  all  bis 
friends,  the  next  to  flee  from  him  and  from  every  memory  of 
him,  and  hide  herself  and  her  shame  where  none  could  ever 
reach  her.     That  she  did.     She  made  her  way  back  into  Italvj 


CHANDOS.  547 

where  she  gave  birth  to  her  child.  She  would  not  even  let 
him  know  that  she  had  borne  him  one.  There  is  little  donbt 
that  the  shock  of  what  she  believed  his  cruelty,  the  falsehoods 
that  Clydesmore  had  woven  about  her  in  his  revenge,  had  un- 
settled her  reason.  That  the  duke  sought  her  far  and  wide-, 
though  unsuccessfully,  is  shown  by  the  difficulties  which  she 
relates  beset  her  in  her  avoidance  of  discovery  by  him." 

He  heard  in  silence,  his  breathing  quick  and  loud,  his  hand 
on  the  dead  man^s. 

*'  His  child!    If  she  could  be  more  dear  to  me  than  she  is, 
that  would  make  her  so!     Go  on;  go  on!" 

*'  The  remainder  is  soon  told.  I  read  this  record  of  a  life 
thrown  away  by  such  blind  folly,  such  mingling  of  utter 
credulity  and  mad  mistrust;  her  marriage-ring  was  inclosed  in 
it,  the  certificate  of  the  child's  birth,  and  other  matters.  She, 
of  course,  wrote  her  absolute  belief  that  she  was  not  his  wife. 
I  reasoned  otherwise.  Philippe  d'Orvdle  might  be  a  voluptu- 
ary, but  his  honor  was  as  true  as  steel.  A  false  marriage 
would  h-ave  been  a  fraud  impossible  to  him,  he  would  never 
have  betrayed  anything.  So — I  sought  out  the  evidence. 
Most  would,  have  gone  to  him.  That  is  not  my  way.  I 
have  known  the  world  too  well  to  call  the  accused  into  the 
place  of  witness.  I  sought  Castalia,  and  I  sought  evidence 
of  the  marriage,  ere  I  went  to  her  father.  I  found  the 
priest  who  had  performed  the  rites,  with  difficulty;  he  had 
joined  the  Order  of  Jesus,  and  was  in  Africa.  With  patience 
I  reached  every  link,  those  who  had  witnessed  it  and  all.  The 
marriage  was  perfectly  valid,  legally  recorded,  though  its  pri- 
vacy had  been  kept.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  that,  with  his  nat- 
ure, which  loved  enjoyment  and  loathed  regret,  when  he  found 
Valeria  irrevocably  lost  to  him  he  had  no  temptation  to  re- 
open a  painful  thought  by  relating  his  connection  with  her. 
Doubtless  other  loves  chased  her  memory  away,  though  doubt- 
less that  memory  always  promjited  his  extreme  tenderness  to- 
ward Lulli.  That  the  union  was  strict  to  the  law,  you  will 
see  when  I  show  you  the  p)roofs;  and,  in  all  that  you  choose  to 
claim  for  her,  Castalia  must  be  recognized  as  a  daughter  of 
the  house  of  D'Orvale." 

He  heard  in  perfect  stillness,  the  sudden  relief  of  the  deadly 
strain  which  had  been  on  him  for  the  past  hours  leaving  him 
giddy  and  speechless;  he  doubted  his  own  hearing:  he  had 
touched  joy  so  often  only  to  see  it  wither  from  him,  he  dread- 
ed that  this  too  was  but  a  dream.  A  thousand  thoughts  and 
memories  rushed  on  him:  that  superb  courage  which  flashed 
from  Castalia's  eyes,  that  imperial  grace  which  had  marked 


548  CHANDOS. 

her  out  among  the  Tuscan  contadini,  as  Perdita  was  marked 
out  among  the  peasants  of  her  foster-home,  that  pride  of  in- 
stinct in  her  which  had  repelled  insult  as  worse  than  death — • 
they  were  the  heritage  in  her  of  the  man  who  lay  dead  beside 
him,  the  heritage  of  a  great  dauntless  race,  that  in  the  annals 
of  centuries  had  nfiver  failed  a  friend  or  quailed  before  a  foe. 
His  hand  closed  tighter  on  Philippe  d'Orvale's,  and  his  head 
drooped  over  c^ie  -ifeless  limbs,  the  stilled  heart  that  never 
again  would  beat  with  the  brave  pulse  of  its  gallant  life. 

"  If  he  were  but  living — " 

In  the  first  moment  of  a  release  so  sudden  that  it  seemed  to 
break  all  his  strength  down  beneath  his  joy,  his  heart  went 
out  to  the  slaughtered  friend  whose  love  had  been  with  him  to 
the  last.  In  all  the  width  of  the  world,  could  he  have  chosen, 
there  was  no  life  from  which  he  would  have  had  hers  taken  so 
soon  as  from  Philippe  d'Orvale^s,  in  which  honor  and  chivalry 
and  loyalty  and  all  bright  and  fearless  things  of  a  royal  tem- 
per had  met  and  been  unstained.  The  dignities,  the  titles, 
the  possessions  that  would  accrue  to  her  through  her  heirship 
with  the  mighty  race  she  issued  from,  never  passed  over  his 
memory;  the  inheritance  that  he  remembered  in  her,  the  in- 
heritance that  he  tiianked  God  for  in  one  who  would  bear  his 
name  and  hold  his  honor,  was  the  inheritance  of  her  father's 
nature. 

"  You  noblest  among  women!"  he  said,  brokenly,  as  he 
took  the  hands  of  Beatrix  Lennox  in  his  own  and  bent  over 
them  as  men  bend  above  an  empress's.  "  How  can  I  thunk 
you?  What  can  I  render  you  for  the  mercy  you  have  brought 
me,  for  the  torture  you  have  taken  from  my  life?  So  vast  a 
gift — so  unasked  a  service  I  What  words  can  ever  tell  you  my 
gratitude?" 

She  smiled,  but  the  smile  was  very  sad. 

"  Don't  you  remember,  long  ago,  I  told  you  I  would  serve 
you  if  I  could,  though  it  were  twenty  years  later?  Well,  I 
have  kept  my  word;  but  there  is  no  need  of  thanks  for  that : 
it  cost  me  nothing. " 

It  had  cost  her  much  to  labor  to  give  him  to  another's  love, 
to  know  that  the  passion  of  his  heart  was  gone  to  the  one 
whom  she  restored  to  him.  But  that  cost  was  uncounted;  the 
world-stained  lionne  could  attain  a  sacrifice  of  which  the  pure 
cold  Lady  of  Lilliesford  could  never  have  faintly  dreamed. 
Her  hands  were  clasped  still  in  his;  his  voice  quivered  as  he 
answered  her. 

"  No  cost!  It  is  such  a  debt  as  leaves  me  bankrupt  to  re- 
pay it;  my  life,  her  life,  will  never  suffice  to  return  it." 


CHANDOS.  549 

Her  eyes  were  very  beautiful  as  they  dwelt  oa  him  in  tha 
dimness  of  the  darkened  chamber. 

"  Chandos,  it  is  paid  enough.  Yoit  will  know  happiness 
once  more.  It  is  your  native  sunlight;  could  my  lips  pray, 
they  should  pray  that  it  may  shine  on  you  forever." 

And  there  was  that  in  the  words,  as  they  were  spoken,  which 
told  him  the  truth  at  last — told  him  of  what  sort  and  of  what 
strength  this  woman's  tenderness  for  him  had  been. 

"  Hush!"  siie  suid,  softly,  with  that  weary  smile  which  had 
in  it  more  sorrow  than  tears.  "  No;  do  not  thank  me;  do 
not  say  more.  It  only  pains  me.  Ah,  Christ!  I  have  clone 
so  little  good!  If  you  think  that  I  merit  any  wage,  give  me 
one  only;  let  me  see  your  darling." 

"  See  her!  Who  should  be  cherished  and  honored  by  her 
always,  if  not  you — you  who  have  given  her  back  her  mother's 
honor?" 

She  made  a  sign  of  dissent. 

"  No;  my  life  has  no  fitness  for  hers.  But  I  would  see  her 
once  ere  she  knows  this — see  what  has  won  your  last  love." 

As  she  spoke,  into  the  shadows  of  the  chamber  of  death  Cas- 
tah'a  entered. 

She  knew  no  cause  for  his  long  absence;  she  knew  no  cause 
for  that  misery  with  which  his  arms  had  crushed  on  her  as 
they  had  stood  waiting  the  volley  of  the  guns.  She  had  borne 
the  silence  awhile  with  the  absolute  submission  to  him  that 
mingled  with  the  passion  of  her  love;  at  last  the  latter  con- 
quered; she  came  to  seek  him,  came  to  know  what  this  barrier 
was  which  had  risen  up  between  them  with  the  morning  light. 
She  paused  as  she  saw  him  not  alone.  Her  face  was  very  pale; 
the  suffering  and  martyrdom  that  she  had  witnessed  had 
wrung  her  heart,  and  stirred  the  depths  of  a  nature  that  had 
in  it  the  love  of  liberty,  and  the  tenderness  for  the  people,  for 
which  her  father  had  died-,  but  the  brilliance  of  her  hair 
flashetl  to  gold  in  the  gloom  of  the  state-room,  out  of  which 
the  height  and  grace  of  her  form  rose;  and,  as  she  waited,  be- 
yond the  gleam  of  the  funeral  lights,  the  royalty  was  on  her 
which  had  seemed  to  rest  like  a  crown  on  her  young  head  when 
she  had  lived  among  the  peasants  of  Tuscany,  and  had  made 
them  speak  of  her  with  a  hushed  aw^e  as  a  fairy's  changeling. 

Beatrix  Lennox  looked  on  her  long  in  silence,  vritli  a  quick 
deep  sigh;  there  was  that  in  her  loveliness  whit;h  far  passed 
beyond  mere  beauty,  mere  youth;  and  between  her  face  and 
the  kingly  majesty  which  was  stretched  dead  on  the  bier  there 
was,  in  that  moment,  a  strange  likeness. 
The  heart  of  this  adventuress,  whom  the  world  had  long 


550  CHANDOS. 

condemned,  had  thus  much  of  rare  nobility  and  self-forgetful- 
ness  in  it;  it  could  rejoice  in  others'  joy,  rejoice  that  what  it 
had  itself  forfeited  still  lived  to  gladden  others.  It  was  un- 
tainted by  that  which  corrodes  many  whose  acts  are  blameless; 
it  was  untainted  by  the  gall  of  envy. 

Beatrix  Lennox  looked  on  this  life  that  opened  to  the  full- 
ness of  existence  while  her  own  was  faded,  that  would  lie  in 
the  bosom  of  the  man  she  loved,  that  would  rest  in  the  golden 
glory  of  joy  whilst  she  herself  had  nothing  left  but  regret  and 
remorse  and  the  phantoms  of  dead  years;  but  there  was  no  bit- 
terness in  her;  there  was  only  a  heartfelt  thanksgiving  for  him. 

"  She  is  worthy  even  of  you,  Chandos,"  she  said,  softly; 
then  she  paused  a  moment,  looking  down  into  the  lustrous, 
meditative,  poetic  eyes  of  Castalia  with  a  long,  searching, 
thoughtful  gaze.  "  You  will  have  a  great  trust,"  she  said, 
simply,  "  and  a  great  treasure;  but  there  is  no  need  to  say  to 
you,  guard  both  dearer  than  life." 

Then,  silently,  with  one  backward  farewell  glance  at  the 
dead  man  lying  there,  she  passed  slowly  and  musingly  from 
the  chamber.  Chandos  followed  her,  and  took  her  hands  once 
more  within  his  own. 

"  Wait.  /  do  not  judge  as  the  world  judges.  You  have 
come  as  the  angel  of  mercy  to  me;  you  have  released  me  from 
a  misery  passing  all  I  had  ever  known.  You  will  live  in  our 
love  and  reverence  forever;  you  will  let  us  both  strive  to  repay 
your'' 

"You  have  more  than  repaid  me  by  those  words  only.  I 
have  much  still  to  tell  you  —to  place  with  you.  But  she  will 
never  see  my  face  again.     You  know  what  my  life  has  been!" 

He  stooped  nearer,  and,  looking  upward,  she  saw  a  divine 
compassion  on  his  face. 

"  I  know  that  it  has  had  magnanimities  many  blameless 
lives  have  never  reached.  Hear  me.  Do  you  think  that,  in 
view  of  such  an  act  as  yours,  I  could  hold  a  Pharisee's  creed? 
God  is  my  witness,  there  is  no  one  whom  1  would  more  fear- 
lessly trust  with  her  than  you,  none  that  I  more  surely  know 
would  reverence  her  youth  and  leave  untouched  her  inno- 
cence.    Can  I  say  merer" 

"More!  You  have  said  far  above  what  I  merit.  But  what 
you  mean  can  not  be.  I  am  no  meet  associate  for  Philippe 
d'Orvale's  daughter,  for  Ernest  Chandos's  wife.  She  must  he 
above  suspicion;  she  could  not  be  so  were  I  once  seen  beside 
her.  No,  my  years  have  been  too  evil  to  leave  me  any  place 
with  hers;  but  they  will  not  be  wholly  desolate  in  future,  for 


Chakdos.  551 

X  shall  have  your  pity  always,  and,  sometimes,  your  remem- 
brance."' 

She  touched  his  hand  with  her  lips  ere  he  could  stay  her, 
and  hot  tears  fell  on  it  as  she  stooped;  then  she  went  from 
him — content,  because  she  had  given  him  happiness,  content, 
because  it  had  been  hers  to  serve  him. 

"Ah,  Heaven!  will  even  she  Icve  him  better  than  I  have 
loved?"  thought  the  woman  whom  the  world  had  called  as 
evil,  perilous,  fatal  to  all  she  saw,  as  Antouina;  and  iu  truth 
none  could  love  more  purely  or  more  deeply  than  she  did. 

He  passed  back  into  the  chamber  whp.re  the  lights  burned 
around  the  solitude  of  the  dead,  and  his  arms  closed  on  what 
he  cherished  with  a  convulsive  pressure  as  though  she  were 
just  rescued  from  her  grave.  He  could  not  speak  for  many 
moments,  but  held  her  there  as  a  man  holds  the  dearest  treas- 
ure of  his  life;  then  he  drew  her  to  the  bier,  where  the  brave, 
serene  face  smiled  on  them  in  eternal  rest. 

"Your  lips  were  the  last  to  touch  his;  thank  God  that  it 
was  so.  I  have  much  to  tell  you;  it  is  best  told  here.  My 
love,  my  love!  could  you  be  more  sacred  to  me,  you  would  be 
so  for  his  sake  !'* 


That  night,  in  the  palace  where  the  dead  man  lay — the 
palace  that,  with  most  of  his  vast  chieftainship,  of  his  prince- 
ly appanage,  would  fall  to  the  only  one  who  owned  his  name 
— (ruido  Lulli  stood  before  her  in  whose  eyes  the  smile  of  his 
lost  Valeria  looked  once  more  upon  him. 

"  Castalia,^'  he  said,  softly,  "you  will  be  very  great  iu  the 
•world's  sight;  but  you  will  not  forget  that  your  mother  loved 
me  once,  when  she  was  a  bright  and  gracious  child,  and  I  had 
no  thought  through  the  length  of  summer  days  and  winter 
nights  save  to  make  her  pleasure:" 

She  stooped  to  him  with  that  grace  which,  even  when  ths 
ban  of  peasants*  scorn  and  of  a  foundling's  shame  hud  rested 
on  her,  had  been  so  proud,  and  had  so  much  of  royalty  in  it, 

"  Ah!  can  you  think  so  basely  of  me  as  to  need  to  ask  it? 
My  fondest  reverence  will  be  ever  yours;  and  as  for  greatness, 
wiiat  greatness  can  there  be  like — " 

Her  eyes  turned  on  Chandos,  and  the  glance  spoke  what 
was  mute  on  her  lips. 

"  His  love?"  added  the  musician,  gently,  while  his  own  gaze 
Iwelt  also  on  the  man  who  hnd  come  to  him  as  his  savior  in 
the  bleak  and  burning  heat  of  Spain,  when  both  were  in  their 
youth.     "Eight.     There  \\\\\  be  your  proudest  coronal;  and 


553  CHANDOS. 

by  yoH;,  through  you,  some  portion  of  my  debt  will  be  pai(}  to 
h'im. " 

Chaudts  silenced  him  with  a  gesture. 

"  Hush!  You  paid  it  long  ago,  Lulli;  paid  it  afresh  to-day, 
paid  it  when  you  gave  me  a  rarer  thing  than  gold — fidelity." 

"  Not  so.  There  are  debts  that,  I  have  told  you,  are  too 
noble  to  be  repaid  like  counted  coin.  Mine  is  one  of  them. 
Let  it  rest  on  me  ever,  ever.  It  will  be  my  last  thought,  and 
my  sweetest  in  my  death-hour." 

There  was  an  exceeding  pathos  in  the  brief  and  simple 
words;  with  them  he  turned  and  passed  from  the  chamber.  He 
looked  back  once,  himself  unseen,  and  his  face  grew  pale  with 
a  certain  pang.  The  light-  that  shone  on  their  lives  would 
never  come  to  him;  the  lotus-lily  of  which  they  eat  his  lips 
could  never  touch.  There  was  no  bitterness  on  him,  no  sin 
of  envy,  no  thought  save  a  voiceless  prayer  for  them;  yet  still 
the  pain  was  there.  No  Joy  could  ever  be  his  own,  no  fra- 
grance of  Eden  reach  him.  He  must  dwell  forever  an  exile 
from  that  golden  world  in  which  men  for  awhile  forget  that 
no  dreams  last.  Had  it  been  his  to  give,  he  would  have  poured 
on  them  the  glory  of  the  life  of  gods;  but  in  their  love  he  saw 
all  his  own  life  had  missed,  all  his  own  life  forever  was  denied. 

As  he  went  back  alone  into  his  desolate  home,  into  the 
music-room  where  the  things  of  his  art  were,  it  was  deep  in 
shade;  only  across  the  kej's  of  the  organ  at  the  end  a  white 
pure  light  was  streaming  from  the  rays  of  a  lamp  that  swung 
above. 

A  smile  came  on  his  lips  as  he  saw  it;  to  him  it  was  as  an 
allegory,  Heaven-painted. 

"  Alone!  wlrle  I  have  you?"  he  murmured. 

The  artist  was  true  to  his  genius;  he  knew  it  a  greater  gift 
than  happiness;  and  as  his  hands  wandered  by  instinct  over 
the  familiar  notes,  the  power  of  his  kingdom  came  to  him,  the 
passion  of  his  mistress  v/as  on  him,  and  the  grandeur  of  the 
melody  swelled  out  to  mingle  with  the  night,  divine  as  con- 
solation, supreme  as  victory. 

Where  he  had  left  them  in  the  solitude  of  a  happiness 
hushed,  yet  only  deepened,  by  the  memory  of  the  dead  that 
bound  them  closer  still,  Castalia,  where  she  leaned  in  her 
lover's  arms,  looked  up  with  the  languor  and  the  fire  of 
Southern  love  burning  softer  and  richer  through  the  mist  of 
unshed  tears. 

"  Ah,  my  lord,  my  king!"  she  murmured,  with  a  smile 
proud,  but  of  an  unspeakable  tenderness,  "  I  rejoice  that  I 


CHANDOS.  553 

shall  be  no  shame  to  you,  that  you  will  not  giv^e  your  name  to 
the  nameless,  that  I  have  that  noblest  heritage  of  his  noble 
death.  And  yet — almost  I  wish  it  had  been  ever  otherwise; 
that  I  had  owed  ail  to  your  gift  only;  that  I  had  taken  honor 
alone  from  you,  lil^e  the  broom-flower  that  was  worthless  until 
Plantagenets  wore  it  on  their  hearts  and  lent  it  their  own 
royalties.  He  spoke  of  my  greatness!  I  have  but  one  great- 
ness, shall  have  but  one  while  my  life  lasts — you!" 


CHAPTER  Vlll. 

LEX  TALIOKIS. 

With  the  sunset  a  mad  storm  had  broken  over  Venice,  roll- 
ing its  funeral  mass  for  the  souls  of  those  who  had  died  for 
liberty.  At  midnight  it  lulllfd  somewhat;  the  tliundergrew 
more  distant,  and  died  away  in  low,  hoarse  anger;  sheets  of 
heavy  rain  succeeded,  and  through  the  hot  sulphurous  air  the 
wind  arose  in  fitful  and  tempestuous  gusts.  In  its  violence, 
the  Jew  kept  his  patient  vigil. 

All  through  the  day  he  had  heard  the  noise  of  the  tumult, 
the  echoes  of  the  firing,  the  shrieks  of  women,  the  clash  of 
swords;  he  had  heard  the  terror-stricken  stillness  that  fell  over 
the  city  when  a  great  man  was  slain;  he  had  heard  the  mur- 
mur of  many  tongues,  that  told  him  many  strange,  conflicting 
tales.  And  his  heart  was  ill  at  rest;  he  feared  for  his  son. 
Death  had  been  abroad  in  the  streets;  death  had  smitten  the 
innocent  with  the  guilty;  whom  might  it  not  have  touched? 
As  soon  as  darkness  gave  him  the  safety  and  the  secrecy  that 
for  Agostino's  sake  he  kept,  he  made  his  way  to  the  place 
where  his  son  dwelt.  He  heeded  neither  the  fury  of  the  winds 
nor  the  beat  of  the  rain;  he  thought  some  passing  sound,  some 
echo  of  a  voice,  some  stray  word  boi'ne  to  his  eager  ear,  might 
tell  him  what  he  sought.  From  sunset  to  midnight  he  waited 
in  the  shadow  of  the  stone-work,  waited  and  listened.  Dark- 
ness and  light  were  alike  to  him;  no  sun-rays  ever  pierced  the 
gloom  before  his  sight,  even  when  the  heat  of  a  Southern  noon 
told  him  the  golden  glow  that  shone  on  all  the  world,  denied 
alone  to  him  and  to  the  Legion  of  the  Blind.  He  stood  and 
listened,  his  long  white  hair  blown  back  in  the  wild  wind,  the 
rushing  storm  of  driving  rain  beaten  against  him  unheeded^ 
he  waited  to  hear  the  one  step  that  should  tell  him  the  son  he 
loved  still  lived:  to  know  that  he  was  near,  to  be  conscious  of 
his  presence  for  one  fleeting  moment,  were  enough  for  the 
great  patient  heart  of  the  Hebrew. 


554  CHANDOS. 

For  these  only  he  watched  now — watched  in  vain.  No  soun3 
repaid  him;  hours  had  passed,  and  there  had  been  nothing. 
The  storm  had  drenched  his  garments,  and  his  snowy  beard 
was  heavy  with  water;  still  he  listened — listened  so  eagerl}' 
that  the  caution  he  had  exercised  so  long  to  remain  unseen 
was  forgotten  as  he  leaned  out  from  the  shadow,  hearkening 
in  the  rush  of  the  rain  for  the  footfall  he  knew  so  well.  He 
forgot  that  the  darkness  which  veiled  the  world  from  him 
could  not  shroud  him  from  sight;  he  could  not  tell  that  the 
wavering  light  of  the  lamp  which  swung  above  from  the  door- 
way near  fell  on  his  olive  brow,  upturned  as  though  in  the 
Psalmist's  weariness  of  prayer.  He  had  worn  the  fetters  of  his 
task-master  so  long;  he  had  so  long  borne  the  burden  and  the 
weight  of  this  iron  silence  bound  on  him;  death  seemed  so 
long  iti  its  coming!  It  took  the  young,  the  beloved,  the  fair, 
the  child  from  its  mother's  bosom,  the  beauty  of  youth  from 
the  lover's  embrace,  the  glory  of  manhood  from  its  fruitage  of 
ambition,  from  its  harvest  of  labor;  and  it  would  not  come  to 
him,  but  left  him  here,  poor,  old,  sightless,  solitary,  alone  in 
the  midst  of  all  the  peopled  earth. 

And  yet  there  was  a  vague  hope  in  his  soul  to-night;  he  felt 
as  though  death  were  not  far  from  him,  as  though  the  release 
of  its  sweet  pity  would  soon  stoop  to  him,  and  touch  him,  and 
bid  his  bitterness  cease;  and  ere  it  came,  he  longed  to  hear 
once  more  his  darling's  step — to  feel  once  more  near  him  the 
existence  born  of  his  dead  love — the  heart  to  which  once  he 
had  been  dear.  He  had  strength  in  him  to  be  silent  unto 
death,  to  accept  his  martyrdom  and  bear  it  onward  to  his 
grave,  untold  to  any  living  thing;  all  he  asked  was  to  listen 
once  to  a  single  living  echo  of  his  lost  son's  voice.  Through 
the  hush  of  the  midnight  the  beat  of  oars  trembled;  a  gondola 
grated  against  the  stairs.  It  came — that  sound  which  thrilled 
through  the  rayless  darkness  which  was  ever  around  him,  as  it 
never  trembled  on  any  ear  whose  sense  was  linked  with  the 
power  of  sight — that  sound  of  Agostino's  voice,  as  it  spoke  to 
the  boatmen — that  sound  which  was  the  sole  joy  left  to  the 
blind.  His  son  came  toward  him  nearer  and  nearer  U23  the 
wet  stone  steps;  he  leaned  forward,  knowing  not  how  the  light 
shone  down  on  his  face,  and  an  unspoken  blessing  trembled  on 
liis  lips  in  the  tongue  of  the  patriarchs  of  Judea;  if  he  died 
to-night,  he  would  have  prayed  with  his  last  breath  for  the 
son  of  the  love  of  his  youth 

The  footfall  paused;  it  was  beside  him  now,  so  close  that  he 
could  hear  every  breath.  A  loud,  wild  cry  broke  through  the 
night.     Agostino  staggered  back,  white,  stricken,  ghastly  as 


CHAKDOS.  555 

Saul  in  the  cave  of  Eiidor,  A  moment,  and  he  gazed  there 
paralyzed  with  spectral  awe,  with  superstitious  horror;  then, 
unwitting  wdiat  he  did,  senseless,  and  breathless,  and  pros- 
trate, he  fell  down  at  the  old  man's  feet  in  the  supplication  of 
his  childhood. 

"  Father!  father!  dead  or  living,  for  the  love  of  God  for- 
give me!" 

The  Heb re w~  stood  above  in  the  flickering  shadowy  light; 
and  on  his  face  there  was  the  strife  of  a  terrible  conflict.  All 
his  soul  yearned  to  the  man  flung  there  in  that  passionate 
prayer  at  his  feet;  yet  for  his  very  sake  he  must  deny  him! 

"I  do  not  know  you,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  trembled 
sorely.     "  None  can  csdlvie  father." 

There  have  been  heroisms  far  less  noble  than  this  one  heroic 
lie. 

Agostino  looked  up,  his  face  all  flushed  with  warmth,  his 
eyes  alight  with  bewildered,  questioning  amaze;  the  voice, 
once  heard,  bore  back  a  thousand  memories  of  by-gone  years. 
The  words  might  deny,  but  the  voice  blessed  him. 

"  Forgive  me!"  he  implored,  scarce  conscious  of  what  he 
said,  but  remembering  alone  the  sin  with  which  he  had  wrung 
the  old  man's  heart  so  long  ago  in  the  days  of  his  boyhood — 
the  sin  which  had  pursued  him  ever  since.  "  Whether  you 
come  to  me  in  spirit  or  in  life,  come  only  to  me  in  pardon,  by 
the  love  you  bore  me. " 

The  Hebrew  stood  mute  and  motionless,  his  tall  and  w^asted 
frame  swaying  like  a  reed,  his  face  changing  with  swift  and 
uncontrollable  emotions,  under  the  force  of  the  imploring 
conjuration.  His  sightless  eyes  gazed  instinctively  down  upon 
his  son;  but  their  blindness  gave  them,  to  Agostino,  a  look 
unearthly  and  without  sense. 

"Father!  speak,  oh,  God!'*  he  cried,  "or  you  will  kill 
me.*' 

The  infinite  love  restrained  in  him  broke  through  the  rigid 
fixity  of  the  old  man's  set  features  as  the  sun  breaks  through 
the  darkness  of  a  winter  dawn;  his  hands  were  stretched  out 
seeking  to  touch  the  beloved  head  lifted  to  him;  he  could  hold 
his  silence  no  more — no  more  be  as  one  dead  to  the  son  who 
knew  him  still. 

His  answer  trembled,  tender  beyond  all  words,  through  the 
sighing  of  the  wild  winds  and  the  rush  of  the  beating  rain. 

"Agostino!  my  child!  what  have  /  to  pardon?  Eise,  rise; 
guide  my  hands  to  you;  let  my  arms  feel  you  ere  I  die!  You 
have  your  mother's  face,  and  I  can  not  behold  it;  I  am  blind!" 


556  CHAKDOS. 

lu  the  dim  light  of  the  chamber  within,  kneeling  at  the  old 
man's  feet  reverently  as  ever  Isaac  knelt  at  the  feet  of  Abra- 
ham, Agostino  heard,  his  father's  history — heard  quivering 
with  torture,  his  breath  caught  by  sobs,  his  kiss  touching  the 
withered  hands  that  were  to  him  as  the  hands  of  a  martyr, 
great  tears  in  his  eyes  that  never  left  their  gaze  upon  those  in 
whose  darkness  he  could  still  read  love.  He  heard  to  the  end. 
Then,  wheu  he  had  heard,  he  wept  convulsively;  the  torrent 
of  his  agony  loosened. 

"  You  have  borne  this  martyrdom  through  him!  this  curse 
for  his  sake!" 

The  Hebrew  stayed  him  with  one  gesture. 

*'  Silence!  His  name  is  sacred  to  me.  My  son,  he  had 
mercy;  he  spared  you." 

Agostino  sprung  to  his  feet  as  an  arrow  springs  from  the 
bow. 

"  Spared  me  ?    Oh,  God,  you  have  thought  that?' 

The  old  man  bent  his  head  with  the  patient  dignity  with 
which  he  had  ever  borne  the  burden  laid  upon  him. 

"  He  spared  you;  yes!  For  it  1  bless  his  name.  My  life 
mattered  nothing." 

"  Spared  me?  He  cursed  me  from  my  youth  up!"  his  voice 
rang  as  steel  rings;  the  bondage  of  half  a  life  was  broken  at 
last.  '*He  loosed  me  from  the  law's  chastisement  to  break 
me  down  into  slavery  worse  than  the  worst  tortures  the  stern- 
est law  ever  dealt  yet.  He  let  me  escape  a  moment  to  fetter 
me  for  an  eternity.  He  traded  in  my  misery;  he  traded  in 
my  crime.  He  set  me  to  do  the  vilest  work,  and,  when  I 
shrunk  from  it,  threatened  me  with  my  buried  sin.  He  made 
my  life  one  endless  dread;  he  never  let  me  know  one  moment's 
peace,  one  hour's  security.  Ah,  Heaven!  why  do  I  speak  of 
it  as  past?  He  does  it  still.  I  am  his  tool,  his  serf,  his 
hound.  Every  day  I  wake,  I  know  that  I  may  rise  only  to  be 
commanded  some  fresh  infamy  to  serve  him  I" 

The  old  man,  as  he  heard,  rose  also,  and  stood  erect;  his 
sunken  eyes  filled  with  the  fire  of  his  dead  manhood,  his  mouth 
set  like  a  vise;  years  of  living  vigor,  of  mighty  strength, 
seemed  poured  into  his  veins;  his  olive  face  was  dark  as  night. 

"  What!  he  was  faithless  to  me?    You  have  suffered?" 

His  words  were  brief,  but  they  carried  an  ominous  meaning. 

"Suffered!  It  is  no  word  for  what  I  have  borne  through 
him.  But  what  is  his  crime  to  me,  beside  his  crime  to  your  I 
was  guilty,  I  merited  nw  punishment;  but  you — you  who  en- 
dured indignity  and  torment  for  my  sake  and  for  his,  you  who 
had  no  error,  save  too  firm  a  loyalty  to  him,  too  noble  a  tendep 


CHANDOS.  557 

ness  to  me!"  His  voice  fell  in  a  deep  tearless  sob;  he  had 
the  heart  of  a  woman,  and  his  father^s  sacrifice  was  holy  in  his 
sight  as  any  martyrdom. 

"  He  has  been  yonr  tyrant?" 

The  question  was  hurd  as  iron. 

Agostino  flung  himsftlf  down  afresh  at  the  old  man's  feet; 
he  felt  that  he  could  kneel  there  forever  in  expiation  of  the 
sin  of  his  youth  that  had  brought  this  doom  darker  than  death 
upon  his  father's  life. 

"  3fine!  what  matters  that?  It  is  nothing  beside  yoiir 
captivity?" 

"  Yes  I  By  it  my  bonds  are  loosed;  by  it  my  oath  is  broken. 
He  has  had  my  patience  long,  my  truth  long,  my  servitude 
long;  now  he  shall  have  my  justice." 

His  whole  height  was  erect,  his  blind  eyes  blazed  with  fire, 
his  arm  was  outstretched  in  imprecation;  he  stood  like  one  of 
the  prophets  of  his  own  Palestine,  cursing  in  the  name  of  Je- 
hovah a  hostile  host,  an  ingrate  land. 

Agostino,  looking  upward,  cauglit  the  same  fire  from  him, 
caught  the  kindling  glow  of  liberty  and  of  revenge.  He  had 
writhed  and  rebelled  under  his  own  bonds,  though  ever  only 
to  sink  more  hopelessly  under  the  fetters;  but  before  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  his  father  there  rose  in  him  that  nobler  rage  for 
another's  wrong  which  would  have  made  him  content  to  perish 
himself  if  in  his  fall  he  could  have  dragged  down  his  tyrant: 
it  is  the  emotion  which  makes  tyrannicides. 

"Ay!"  he  cried,  passionately,  "let  us  be  avenged  if  the 
povv'er  be  still  with  us.  Let  him  shame  me,  ruin  me,  kill 
me;  but  let  me  see  him  struck  down  ere  I  die.  His  guilty 
secrets  have  been  the  curse  of  both  our  lives;  let  them  be  told 
against  him!     /  was  impotent;  but  you — " 

The  figure  of  the  aged  Hebrew  towered  in  the  gloom,  and 
on  his  face  was  the  stern  ruthless  justice  of  the  Mosaic  law. 

"  As  he  dealt  with  us,  so  will  I  deal  with  him;  there  is  no 
bond  with  traitors.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 
It  is  just.  Go!  fetch  (he  man  he  strove  hardest  to  destroy.  He 
is  in  Venice;  bring  him  here." 

The  weaker  nature  of  his  son  trembled  as  he  touched,  at 
hist,  the  liberty,  the  atonement,  the  avenging  blow  for  which 
he  had  so  long  thirsted.  The  slave  had  been  a  slave  so  long, 
he  trembled  before  the  daring  that  would  loose  his  chains. 

"  But  only  to  have  shared  such  infamy  was  so  vile!  I  can 
not  bear  that  //e  should  know  us  its  accomplices — " 

"Silence!  What  matter?  We  were  beasts  of  burden;  we 
carried  what  loads  our  master  laid  on  us — dead  men  or  blood 


55  S  CKANDOS. 

stained  weapons.     Go;  bring  him  quickly! — quickly!     Do  you 

hear?" 

.  An  ashen  hue  stole  over  the  bronze  of  his  face,  his  lips  were 

pressed  in  a  straight  line  under  the  flowing    of  his  beard,  his 

hands  moved  with  a  swift  impatient  movement.      Agostino 

looked  up  at  him  in  fear. 

"  Father!  wait.     You  are  too  weak.'' 

The  old  man's  voice  rang,  stern  and  imperious,  across  his 
own. 

"  I  shall  be  strong  to  do  this  ere  Idle.  Goto  him;  tell  him 
I  will  give  him  his  vengeance.  Go  to  him;  I  command  you 
— bring  him  here." 

The  inflexible  command  brooked  no  disobedience;  it  swayed 
his  listener  with  the  old  force  of  the  Jewish  parental  power. 
Agostino  was  once  more  the  youth  before  his  father's  might, 
under  his  father's  hand.     He  dared  dispute  no  longer. 

The  old  man  sat,  and  waited.  Moments  seemed  hours  to 
him;  the  flame  of  his  life  was  burning  low,  he  dreaded  lest  it 
should  die  out  ere  it  should  have  time  to  shine  upon  his  venge- 
ance and  light  the  fires  that  would  devour  his  tyrant's  fame 
and  crumble  it  to  ashes  in  the  sight  of  men.  His  pulse  beat 
faintly,  his  heart  was  oppressed,  his  limbs  felt  chill  as  ice:  but 
he  had  said  that  he  had  strength  in  him  to  do  this  thing  ere  he 
passed  away  among  the  vanished  crowds;  and  he  sat  there 
with  his  ear  straining  eagerly,  his  lips  braced,  his  whole  force 
strung,  to  keep  in  him  the  powers  of  thought  and  speech  and 
memory,  on  which  his  hold  was  now  fast  slackening. 

His  son  knelt  near  him;  he  had  sent  the  bidding  to  the  one 
whom  it  summoned,  and  he  crouched  near  like  a  beaten  dog. 
For  the  moment,  he  had  j^anted  to  break  his  bonds  at  any 
cost;  but  the  vehemence  of  that  impulse  had  its  reaction;  he 
felt  sick  with  shame,  he  trembled  with  dread:  the  whip  had 
done  its  invariable,  inevitable  work:  it  had  made  the  spaniel 
a  cowarci  to  the  core.  Moreover,  he  loathed  his  own  sins;  he 
held  himself  viler  than  the  harshest  judge  woidd  ever  have 
held  him,  and  he  feared  unspeakably  the  sight  of  the  man  who 
had  cleaved  to  honor  at  all  cost,  the  man  whom  he  might  have 
saved  had  he  but  had  the  courage  to  risk  a  personal  peril. 

Where  the  Hebrew  sat  with  his  head  bent  forward,  his  hand 
clinched  on  the  wood-work  near  him,  his  quick  hearing  caught 
a  distant  sound;  his  lips  moved  eagerly. 

"  He  comes!  Bring  him — bring  him  quickly!  Let  me 
speak  while  I  can!" 

Agostino  started  to  his  feet,  and  staggered  out,  at  the  im- 
perious command — out  into  the  gloom  of  the  stone  passages. 


CHANDOS.  559 

Prom  the  wild  night  without,  Chandos  entered.  The  storm 
had  risen  afresh,  the  lashing  of  water  and  wind  had  beaten 
on  the  black  sea-piles,  the  darkness  of  the  hot  tempestuous  air 
was  impenetrable,  the  rains  were  jDOuring  down  in  torrents; 
through  the  tempest,  heedless  that  his  hair  was  drenched  and 
that  the  lightning  scorched  his  eyes,  he  had  come,  with  but  one 
memory  on  him,  with  but  one  hope — his  vengeance. 

Passionate  as  his  love  was,  dear  as  his  heritnge,  closely  as 
he  had  cloven  to  a  barren  honor  through  barren  years  of  bit- 
terness, he  would  have  been  capable  in  that  instant  of  throwing 
honor  and  heritage  and  love  away  if  by  them  only  he  could 
have  purchased  this  one  thing.  No  life  so  utterly  and  so 
surely  attains  strength  that  it  may  not  give  way  and  fall  at 
the  last;  no  life  is  so  absolutely  free  of  baser  passions  that, 
when  the  slaughter-lust  is  on  it,  it  may  not  reel  headiong  into 
crime. 

As  he  entered,  with  the  dignity  of  command,  the  glow  of 
passion  upon  his  face,  on  which  the  grief  that  the  day  had 
borne  and  the  light  of  recovered  happiness  mingled,  there  was 
in  him  the  beauty  that  the  Sapanish  lad  had  likened  in  the 
days  of  his  youth  to  the  golden-haired  sovereign  of  Syria;  and 
as  Agostino  saw  him,  involuntarily,  unconsciously,  he  threw 
himself  at  the  feet  of  this  man,  whose  wrongs  he  had  buried 
in  silence  through  the  pusillanimity  of  a  selfish  terror;  he 
abased  himself  there  as  Eastern  slaves  before  their  rulers. 

"  Forgive  me,  if  you  can!  I  can  never  forgive  myself.  I 
was  like  one  who  sees  a  murder  done,  and  will  not  raise  his 
voice  to  stay  the  lifted  blade,  lest  it  be  thrust  into  his  own 
throat  instead.  I  loved  you — honored  you^ — though  your  eyes 
never  fell  on  me  but  twice  in  my  boyhood;  and  yet  I  never 
told  you  where  the  assassin  hid!" 

Chandos  forced  iiim  upward  by  sheer  strength;  light  flashed 
from  his  eyes,  his  lips  parted  with  fevered  eagerness,  his  whole 
frame  thrilled  with  one  desire  alone. 

"  I  see  who  you  are;  I  see  what  you  know.  If  you  can  give 
me  vengeance,  there  is  no  guilt  on  earth  /  will  not  pardon  you. 
Vengeance,  I  say!  Give  me  but  justice,  and  it  will  beggar 
the  widest  vengeance  that  men  ever  took.  Your  father  sent 
for  me:  lead  on — quick!" 

The  softness  of  his  love,  the  bereavement  of  the  noon,  were 
alike  flung  off  him  as  though  they  had  no  place  in  his  life; 
the  world  held  nothing  for  him  save  this  only — a  life-time  of 
wrong,  left  unavenged  so  long. 

Agostino  looked  at  him  in  one  fleeting  look;  then  the 
crouched,  shuddering,  beaten  shame  came  on  him  that  hat? 


560  CHAKDOS. 

moved  him  when  in  the  oak-forest  he  had  seen  the  hopeless 
melancholy  of  the  face  that  he  had  once  known  brilliant  as 
the  Spanish  sun  that  had  shone  on  them  when  tiiey  had  firs; 
met.  He  had  lived  in  the  world,  he  had  made  fame,  he  had 
carried  himself  fairly  before  men;  but  he  had  been  but  a  slave, 
and  a  slave's  weakness  and  ^jrostration  were  in  his  nature  for- 
ever. 

He  gave  a  heart-sick,  shivering  sigh. 

"  Ah,  yoic  may  pardon,  but  I  can  not  pardon  myself.  You 
have  known  calamity  and  desolation;  but  you  have  never 
known  the  worst  pang  of  all — to  be  disgraced  in  your  o«vn 
eyes!" 

Even  in  that  moment  the  anguish  of  the  accent  reached 
and  touched  Chandos.  He  turned  and  looked  an  instant  on 
the  face  that  he  had  once  seen  in  its  boyish  grace,  with  the 
hot  amber  light  of  Granada  upon  it. 

"  He  who  feels  disgrace  so  keenly  is  on  the  surest  road  to 
leave  it  behind  bim  forever.  Kow,  lead  on — quick,  for  the 
sake  of  Heaven  V 

The  wax-like,  flexible,  impressive  nature  of  the  Castilian 
Jq^'  was  awed  and  stilled  by  the  might  of  the  avenging  power 
he  had  summoned.  He  led  the  way  in  silence — led  him  into 
the  great  chamber  where  the  blind  man  sat,  lonely  and  old 
and  poor,  but  grand  as  the  sightless  seer  of  Chios. 

The  light  from  above  beamed  on  the  massive  bronze  of  his 
forehead  and  on  the  snow-white  falling  beard.  His  eyes 
strained  into  the  gloom  they  could  not  pierce;  he  rose  at  the 
sound  of  the  footstep,  and  stood  erect  as  the  Prophet  of  his 
own  I'abbinical  tale  when  he  rose  to  bless  the  Israel  whom  his 
task-master  had  bade  him  curse. 

"  Come  hither,"  he  said,  briefly,  and  his  voice  gathered  the 
force  of  his  manhood.  "  You  craved  a  perilous  thing,  and  I 
refused  it;  the  lust  is  mine  now,  and  I  will  yield  you  what 
you  sought.  '  He  who  rises  by  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword;'  it  is  just.  You  shall  deal  with  him  as  by  the  law  of 
Moses: — '  every  man  shall  be  put  to  death  according  to  his 
sin.'     Come  hither  and  listen  while  my  lips  have  still  speech." 

Where  Chandos  stood  against  him,  his  face  was  eager  with 
a  fiery  hunger,  flushed  and  set  with  a  mighty  passion:  his 
breath  caught  in  quick  gasps. 

"But— your  oath?" 

The  bond  was  not  his,  yet  he  remembered  the  sanctity  of 
the  vow  that  had  been  in  his  path  as  a  rock. 

His  slight  ironic  smile  wavered  an  instant  over  the  Jew's 
stern  mouth. 


CHANDOS.  561 

''  Sir,  yoa  are  thrice  a  madman!  You  guard  other  men's 
honor  as  well  as  your  own,  even  to  your  own  hinderance.  Be 
at  rest.  My  oath  is  broken  justly.  It  was  sworn  for  so  long 
as  my  son  was  saved  by  him.  He  has  cursed  my  son;  I  am 
released.  Traitors  shall  be  slain  by  their  own  weapons.  I  was 
silent  and  faithful  while  I  believed  silence  and  fidelity  due. 
He  has  been  false  to  me;  the  bond  is  rent  by  his  own  haud. 
You  said  aright  in  the  night  that  is  past;  he  whom  I  served 
was  your  enemy. ^' 

The  oak-wood  of  the  bench  on  which  his  hands  were 
clinched  broke  like  a  reed  in  Chandos's  grasp  as  he  heard. 
He  had  known  this  iniquity  ere  yet  it  had  been  told;  but  its 
utterance  fell  on  him  like  the  stroke  of  an  iron  mace.  His 
foe's  life,  had  it  been  by  him  in  that  one  moment,  had  not 
been  worth  a  moment's  purchase;  it  would  have  been  broken 
asunder  as  the  strong  rail  was  snapped  in  his  hands. 

"  Tell  me  all,"  he  said,  briefly,  between  his  teeth,  that 
fastened  together  like  a  steel  lock. 

"  Sir,  to  tell  you  all  the  iniquity  that  /  wrought  were  to 
speak  for  a  score  of  years,  and  I  shall  not  live  as  many 
minutes,"  said  the  Israelite,  in  his  grave,  caustic  satire. 
"  '  "When  thou  cuttest  the  harvest  in  the  field,  leave  a  sheaf 
for  the  fatherless,'  said  tbe  law.  Well,  we  kept  the  law  so 
well  that  we  sheared  the  last  wheat-ear  from  every  land  in 
our  reach.  '  No  man  shall  take  the  mill-stones  to  j^iedge; 
for  he  taketh  a  man's  life  to  j^ledge,'  the  law  has  written. 
Well,  we  obeyed  so  well  that  we  took  the  mill-stones  and 
ground  the  life  to  powder  between  them.  But,  of  all  tbat  we 
wronged,  we  wronged  you  most.  You  had  had  mercy  on  him 
when  he  was  a  debtor  and  wretched;  you  had  given  him  food, 
and  shelter,  and  comfort,  and  friendship,  and  the  smile  of  the 
world;  and  in  payment  he  wrung  your  life  dry  of  all  wealth 
and  all  peace,  as  men  wring  a  skin  dry  of  wine." 

He  paused;  life  was  flickering  dully  and  feebly  in  him.- 
Chandos  shook  with  rage  where  he  heard. 

"  Uo  you  think  I  have  not  known  that  ?  More — more,  for 
the  love  of  God !     To  be  told  my  wrongs  is  no  vengeance. " 

"  Patience.  Your  vengeance  lies  in  them.  Your  enemy 
never  broke  the  laws  of  his  land;  he  was  too  wary  in  wisdom: 
he  plundered,  but  he  plundered  within  the  statutes.  The 
worst  felons  are  those  wh,o  can  never  be  brought  to  the  bar. 
He  persuaded  you  to  waste  your  substance;  he  drew  it — much 
of  it — into  his  hands;  but  it  was  always  you  who  signed  your 
own  death-warrant.  I  have  had  your  signatures  by  the  hun- 
dred; the  sums  they  signed  away  were  cheated  from  you,  be- 


563  CHAKDOS. 

cause  lies  were  told  you  of  their  use  and  their  purport;  but 
you  were  very  careless  in  those  matters,  and  he  was  very  able. 
There  is  not  one  of  them  that  is  forged;  they  were  all  legale 
though  they  were  villainies/' 

"  Oh,  God!  is  he  never  to  be  reached,  then?" 

It  rang  out  from  him  in  a  loud  cry,  like  the  cry  of  a  drown- 
ing man  from  whose  hands  the  last  plank  slips. 

*'  Patience!  Have  I  not  said  you  shall  have  your  vengeance 
and  mine!  You  can  not  bring  him  to  the  felon's  doci\,  but 
you  shall  gibbet  him  in  the  sight  of  the  nations;  you  shall  rend 
his  robes  asunder;  you  shall  tread  his  crowns  beneath  his  feet. 
Half — nay,  a  tithe — of  what  I  can  tell  would  suffice  to  drive 
him  out  in  shame  and  cover  his  head  with  ignominy.  The 
breath  of  his  life  now  is  to  be  untainted  before  the  country 
that  holds  him  a  chief;  lay  bare  his  corrnptiou,  and  ruin  will 
blast  him,  he  will  fall,  stricken  to  the  roots." 

His  breath  caught,  his  cheek  grew  ashen;  the  strength  was 
dying  in  him,  and  the  stagnant  course  of  his  blood  was  nigh 
ceasing  forever;  but  he  had  a  ruthless  will,  he  forced  life  back 
to  him,  and  his  words  rang  clear  as  a  herald's  menace. 

"  Let  me  say  the  chief  thing  first;  my  breath  will  fail 
ere  yon  know  one  thousandth  part.  Briefly,  take  my 
signet-ring,  here,  to  one  of  my  i^eople  in  Paris — Joachim 
Eosso,  a  worker  in  silver — in  the  street  where  you  found 
me.  At  that  sign,  bid  him  give  you  the  sealed  papers 
he  keeps  for  me.  He  knows  notiiing  of  what  is  in  them; 
but  he  has  guarded  them  for  me  many  years.  He  is  a  good 
friend  and  faithful.  In  them  you  will  find  the  record  of  all  I 
have  no  strength  to  tell  you— the  proofs  of  the  trade  that  your 
foe  and  I  drove  in  men's  necessities.  This  Englishman,  my 
bond-master,  was  very  keen,  very  wise;  and  when  he  held  me 
by  my  son's  danger  and  by  my  own  gratitude,  he  held  me  by 
iron  chains;  he  knew  he  could  trust  me  to  suffer  anything  and 
keep  silence.  But  " — his  sardonic  smile  passed  over  his  lips — 
"  he  dealt  with  a  Jew,  and  the  Jew  could  meet  the  fox  with  a 
fox's  skill.  He  had  heavily  weighted  me  into  slavery;  and 
while  I  believed  him  true  to  the  lad,  my  tongue  should  have 
been  rooted  out  rather  than  be  made  to  utter  one  syllable 
against  him.  But  a  Jew's  life  is  lived  only  to  cheat,  they  say; 
and  I  outwitted  even  my  tyrant  so  far.  T  kept  jjapers  he 
never  knew;  I  compiled  proofs  he  never  dreamed.  Had  he 
been  true  to  me  in  his  dealing  with  Agostino,  they  would  have 
been  burned  by  Joachim  the  day  that  I  died.  He  broke  faith 
with  me;  I  turn  the  blade  of  his  own  knife  against  him;  I  net 
him  in  the  threads  of  his  own  subtlety," 


CHAN  DOS.  663 

There  was  the  sternness  of  the  Levitical  law  in  the  words  as 
they  rolled  out  from  the  hollow  chest  of  the  sightless  man 
where  he  stretched  his  hands  in  imprecation. 

"  As  he  sowed,  so  let  him  reap;  as  he  dealt,  so  let  him  be 
dealt  with:  as  he  filled  his  unjust  ephah  with  ill-gotten  wheat, 
so  let  the  bread  he  has  made  thereof  be  like  poison  to  consume 
him!'^ 

The  fierce,  unflinching  justice  thrilled  like  a  curse  through 
the  stillness  of  the  chamber. 

Chandos's  hand  closed  on  the  signet-ring;  his  face  was  very 
white,  and  through  his  teeth  his  breathing  came  with  a  low, 
hissing  sound,  as  though  the  weight  of  the  evil  of  his  traitor 
lay  like  lead  on  his  chest. 

"  One  word — my  ruin  was  worked  by  fraud?'' 

The  Hebrew  bent  his  head,  and  the  red  shame  that  had  be- 
fore come  there  in  the  sight  of  Chandos  flickered  with  mo- 
mentary warmth  over  the  bloodless  olive  of  his  cheek. 

"  Sir,  I  duped  men  without  a  pang  of  conscience.  I  have 
said  I  was  very  evil.  My  work  throve  in  my  hands  so  well  be- 
cause I  was  without  one  yielding  or  gentle  thing  in  me.  But 
when  we  duped  yoii,  even  I  shrunk.  You  trusted  him  so 
utterly,  you  were  such  a  madman  in  your  generosity,  such  a 
fool  in  your  lack  of  suspicion,  so  noble  in  your  utter  weakness 
of  carelessness  and  faith!  And  I  knew  that  you  had  served 
him,  fed  him,  sheltered  him — that  you  trusted  him  as  a 
brother.  When  you  were  drawn  down  into  our  bottom- 
less pit,  even  1  abhorred  the  work!" 

''  There  was  fraud,  then?" 

His  voice  was  hoarse;  the  syllables  slowly  panted  out;  till 
the  life  of  his  foe  was  wholly  in  his  power,  he  felt  as  lions  feel 
when  cage-bars  hold  them  from  their  tormentors. 

"Fraud? — surely!  But  I  doubt  if  the  law  could  touch  it: 
it  was  deftly  done.  He  led  you  on  into  a  million  extrava- 
gances; he  blinded  your  sight:  he  cheated  you  utterly.  You 
set  your  name  to  your  friends'  bills,  and  we  bought  those  bills 
in,  and  then  we  wrung  the  money  out  of  you;  you  signed 
what  you  thought  leases  and  law  trifles,  and  you  signed  in 
reality  what^,made  you  our  debtor  for  enormous  sums.  You 
gave  him  blank  checks;,  when  he  filled  them  up  to  pay  for  your 
pictures,  for  your  horses,  for  your  mistress's  jewels,  he  drew 
his  own  percentage  on  them  all.  You  gave  him  fatal  power 
over  your  properties,  and  he  undermined  them.  Yet  I  doubt 
if,  at  this  distance  of  time,  you  could  arraign  him  for  fraud. 
You  disputed  nothing  then;  you  could  scarce  dispute  now, 
after  the  lapse  of  so  mai^y  years.     It  was  viler  work  than 

10— 2d  half.      , 


5(ji  CHANDOS. 

nlurder;  he  killed  you  by  inches;  he  drained  your  blood  drop 
by  drop;  he  made  the  earth  under  your  feet  a  hollow  crust, 
and  at  his  signal  the  crust  broke,  and  you  sunk  into  the  pit 
that  he  had  dug.  But  he  kept  within  the  law;  he  kept  within 
the  law!^' 

There  was  a  world-wide  sarcasm  in  the  acrid  words;  he  had 
knov/n  so  many  criminals — great  men  in  their  nations — whose 
crimes  were  never  guessed  because  "  within  the  law!" 

"  But  what  matter!  See  here/'  His  withered  fingers 
grasped  like  steel  the  arm  of  the  man  he  had  aided  to  rob. 
"  In  my  papors  you  will  find  the  whole  detail  of  our  business 
system.  You  will  find  the  list  of  the  men  we  helped  to  rnin. 
You  will  see  how  he  stripped  bare  to  the  bone  the  friends 
whom  he  fed,  and  drove  and  laughed,  and  jested  with.  Y^ou 
will  see  how  the  chief  of  his  riches  was  made — how  in  real 
truth  he  was  but  a  usurer,  who  churned  into  wealth  the 
needs  of  his  associates  in  the  world  that  he  fooled.  Tell  the 
tale  to  the  world;  it  will  blast  him  forever.  Show  how  the 
man  you  succored  repaid  you.  Let  them  behold  the  first  steps 
by  which  their  favorite  rose  to  his  power;  trace  the  vile  sub- 
ways by  which  he  traveled  to  dignity.  Point  to  the  dead,  the 
exiled,  the  cursed,  whom  he  dwelt  with  in  friendship  while  he 
drove  his  barter  in  their  shame  and  their  want.  Go  and  un- 
mask him;  go  and  coi\demn  him.  You  will  find  proofs  in  my 
legacy  that  will  brand  him  your  destroyer  and  theirs.  Go! 
though  he  be  brought  into  no  felon's  dock,  you  will  scourge 
him,  dishonored  forever,  out  of  the  land  where  he  stands  now 
a  chief!" 

The  deep,  rich  voice  of  the  Hebrew  rolled  out  like  an 
organ-swell;  the  vitality  of  manhood  was  lent  for  a  moment  to 
the  wasted  powers  of  age.  Faithful  through  all  ordeals  to  his 
very  grave,  he  turned  in  his  death-hour  to  stamp  out  the 
traitor  whom  in  that  hour  he  had  found  false  to  his  bond. 

Chandos  stood  beside  him,  his  lips  parted,  his  eyes  filled, 
with  fire;  his  face  was  dark  with  the  j)assions  of  that  blood- 
thirst  which  had  risen  in  him. 

"Dishonor  him!  dishonor  him!"  he  said,  in  his  ground 
teeth.      "  If  I  slew  him,  I  should  be  too  merciful!" 

There  was  silence  for  awhile  in  the  chamber;  they  who  hearc? 
knew  the  width  and  the  depth  of  his  vast  wrong,  knew  that 
no  chastisement  his  hand  should  take  could  be  too  deadly. 
The  old  maji's  white  head  sunk,  his  hands  trembled  where 
they  were  knitted  together. 

"  And  forget  not  that  I  wronged  you  equally — that  I  forged 
the  steel  that  pierced  and  wove  the  net  that  bound  you!     To- 


CHANDOS.  565 

night  my  soul  will  be  required  of  me;  it  is  dark  with  evil,  as 
the  night  is  dark  with  storm.  Could  it  be  free  of  your  curse, 
I  could  die  easier.  " 

Chandos  stooped  to  him;  and  his  voice,  though  the  fire  of 
his  hate  burned  in  it,  was  hushed  and  gentle  with  pity. 

"  My  curse!  When  you  succored  what  I  love?  When  you 
render  me  my  vengeance?  Not  equally  did  you  wrong  me, 
you  never  eat  my  bread,  you  never  owned  my  trust.  Your 
martyrdom  may  surely  avail  to  buy  your  pardon  both  from 
God  and  inan." 

The  large,  slow  tears  of  age  welled  into  the  Hebrew's  sight- 
less eyes;  the  hard,  brave,  ruthless  nature  was  stricken  to  the 
core  by  the  mercy  it  had  never  yielded;  he  lifted  his  hands 
feebly,  and  rested  them  on  the  bowed  head  of  the  man  whom 
he  had  wronged. 

*'  May  the  desire  of  thine  eyes  be  given  thee,  and  thine  off- 
spring reign  long  in  the  land!  May  peace  rest  on  thee  for- 
ever! for  thou  art  just  to  the  end — to  the  end." 

Purer  blessing  was  never  breathed  upon  his  life  than  this 
which  his  spoiler  and  his  foe  now  uttered. 

Then,  as  the  darkness  that  veiled  his  sight  so  long  was  lost 
in  the  darkness  of  death,  the  old  man  stretched  his  arms  out- 
ward to  his  son,  seeking  what  his  silent  unrequited  love  had 
found  at  last  only  to  lose  forever. 

"Nearer  to  my  heart!  nearer — nearer.  God  cherish  thee! 
— God  pardon  thee!  Ah!  will  any  love  thee  as  I  have  loved? 
Death  is  rest;  yet  it  is  bitter.  In  the  grave  I  can  not  hear 
thy  coming,  I  can  not  hearken  for  thy  step!'' 

And,  with  his  blind  eyes  seeking  thirstily  the  face  so  well 
beloved,  on  which  they  could  not  look,  even  to  take  one  fare- 
well gaze,  a  deep-drawn  sigh  heaved  the  heart  that  had  been 
bound  under  its  iron  bonds  of  silence  for  so  long,  the  weary 
limbs  stretched  outward  as  a  worn  wayfarer's  stretch  upon  a 
bed  of  rest,  and,  in  a  hush  of  stillness  as  the  tempest  lulled, 
the  long  life  of  pain  was  ended. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

KING   OYER  HIMSELF. 


There  was  a  great  banquet  in  the  city  of  London — a  ban- 
quet held  chiefly  in  honor  of  the  brilliant  statesman,  the  popu^ 
lar  favorite,  who  had  (juelled  the  riots  of  the  North  with  so 
fearless  a  courage,  so  atlniirablo  an  address — who  was  the  key- 
stone of  his  party,  the  master-mind  of  his  cabinet,  the  inspirer 


566  OHANDOS. 

of  his  colleagues,  the  triumphant  and  assured  possessor  of  tliAt 
virtue  of  Success  which  vouches  for,  and  which  confers,  all 
other  virtues  in  the  world's  sight.  The  gorgeous  barbarism, 
the  heavy  splendor,  the  ill-assorted  costly  food,  the  ponderous 
elephantine  festivity,  were  in  his  honor;  the  seas  of  wine 
flowed  for  his  name;  the  civic  dignities  were  gathered  for  his 
sake;  the  words  he  spoke  were  treasured  as  though  they  were 
pearls  and  rubies;  the  great  capital  crowned  him,  and  would 
have  none  other  than  him.  These  things  wearied  other  men; 
this  pomp,  so  coarse  and  so  senseless  and  so  repeated  in  their 
lives,  sickened  most  whom  it  caressed  as  it  caressed  him;  but 
on  Trevenna  it  never  palled.  The  rich  and  racy  temjDer  in 
him  never  lost  its  relish  for  the  comedy  of  life;  and  the  vain- 
glorious pleasure  of  his  victories  was  never  sated  by  the  repe- 
titions that  assured  him  of  them.  The  Ave  Tmperator 
was  always  music  on  his  ear,  whatever  voices  shouted  it;  the 
sense  of  his  own  achievement  was  ever  delightful  to  his  heart, 
and  was  never  more  fully  realized  than  when  there  were  about 
him  those  public  celebrations  of  it — the  feasting  and  cheering 
and  toasting  and  servile  prostrating  which  to  most  statesmen 
are  the  hardest  and  most  hateful  penalty  of  power,  but  in 
which  he  took  an  unflagging  and  unafl'ected  pleasure  with 
every  fresh  assurance  of  his  celebrity  that  they  brought  him. 
His  part  in  the  mighty  farce  was  23la3^ed  with  the  elastic  vi- 
vacity, the  genuine  enjoyment,  of  a  jovial  humorist;  it  had  no 
assumption  in  it,  for  it  was  literally  incessant  amusement  and 
infinite  jest  to  him;  and  the  good  humor,  the  mirth,  the  vital- 
ity with  which  he  came  ever  among  the  p>eople,  and  went 
through  all  the  course  of  public  homage  and  public  convivial- 
ity, were  but  the  cordial  expression  of  the  temper  with  which 
he  met  life. 

To-night,  at  the  civic  dinner  given  in  his  honor,  all  eyes 
turned  on  him,  acclamations  had  welcomed  his  entrance,  no 
distinction  was  held  sufficient  for  such  a  guest,  and  compli- 
ment and  tribute  and  reverential  admiration  were  poured  on 
him  in  the  speeches  that  toasted  his  name  and  quoted  his  acts, 
his  fame,  his  ever-growing  strength,  his  master-intellect,  his 
place  in  the  councils  and  in  the  love  of  the  nation;  and  he  en- 
joyed with  all  a  wit's  keen  relish  the  verbiage  and  the  hyper- 
bole and  the  cant,  and  enjoyed  but  the  more  for  them  the 
ascendency  he  held,  the  fearless  footing  he  had  made,  the  am- 
bitions crowned  to  their  apex,  and  the  future  of  ambitions 
even  higher  yet,  which  had  come  to  the  force  of  his  hand,  to 
the  compelling  of  his  genius.  Of  a  truth  he  was  a  great  man 
and  he  knew  it;  he  had  brought  to  his  conquest  such  patience 


CHAKDOS.  56^ 

and  such  qualities  as  only  great  men  possess;  he  was  a  giant 
whose  tread  was  ever  certain,  whose  eyes  ever  saw  beyond  his 
fellows,  whose  armor  was  ever  bright,  whose  grasjj  was  ever 
sure.  It  was  natural  that  on  the  breathless,  pushing,  toiling 
weaknesses  of  the  Lilliputians  around  him  he  should  look  with 
a  Rabelaisan  laugh,  with  a  Sullan  contemptuousness  of  un- 
flinching and  unsparing  victory. 

The  banquet  ended  somewhat  early;  for  a  measure  of  con- 
siderable moment  was  passing — a  measure  framed  and  carried 
through  two  readings  by  himself,  and  its  third  reading  was  to 
take  place  with  the  joresent  night.  The  crowded  feast  had  give 
him  all  the  idolatry  and  applause  of  the  city  of  London — given 
it  with  wines,  and  massive  meats,  and  soups,  and  sauces,  and 
gold  plate,  and  interminable  speeches,  as  is  its  custom  in  that 
strange  antithetical  relic  of  barbarism  which  must  gluttonously 
feed  what  it  intellectually  admires;  and  from  it  he  went  to  the 
arena  of  his  j^roudest  conquest,  to  the  field  in  which  it  is  so 
hard  to  keep  a  footing  when  against  the  wrestler  is  flung  the 
stone  "  adventurer  " — to  the  place  where  many  mediocrities 
pass  muster,  but  where  a  combination  of  qualities  the  most 
difficult  to  gain  and  the  most  rarely  met  in  unison  can  alone 
achieve  and  sustain  a  permanent  and  high  success.  If  any  had 
asked  him  to  what  crown  among  his  many  crowns  he  attached 
the  23roudest  value,  he  would  have  answered,  and  answered 
rightly,  to  the  sway  that  he  had  mastered  over  the  House  of 
Commons. 

As  he  drove  to  Westminster,  the  carriage  rolled  past  the 
statue  of  Philip  Chandos  at  which,  going  and  coming  from  the 
councils  of  his  country,  he  oftentimes  glanced  with  the  sweet- 
ness of  his  attainments  made  sweeter  by  the  look  he  cast  at 
that  colossal  marble,  which  he  would  banter  and  talk  to  and 
jeer  at  with  that  dash  of  bufl:oonery  which  mingled  with  the 
virile  sagacious  force  of  his  nature  as  it  has  mingled  with 
many  a  great  man^s  acumen. 

"  Ah,  tres  cher!'^  he  murmured  to  himself  now,  with  a 
cigar  in  his  teeth,  as  he  caught  sight  of  it  in  the  gas-light, 
"  the  Mad  Duke's  been  shot  in  a  brawl,  they  say — in  the  only 
end  fit  for  him.  1  will  have  your  Olarencieux,  now.  Crash 
shall  go  the  old  oaks,  and  we'll  smelt  down  the  last  marquis's 
coronet  into  a  hunting-cup  for  we  to  drink  out  of;  my  hounds 
should  have  their  mash  in  it,  only  the  nation  might  thiuk  me 
insane.  Is  there  anything  you  i^articularly  loved  there,  I 
wonder?  If  there  were,  it  should  be  flung  in  the  fire.  The 
great  hall  was  your  beggared  successor's  special  j^ride.  Well, 
we'll  burn  it  down  when  I  get  there — by  accident  on  purposel 


568  CHANDOS. 

A  fine  too  hot  will  soon  lay  its  glories  in  ashes.     Tout  vienf  h 
2)oint  a  qui  salt  attetidre. " 

All  things  had  come  to  his  hand,  and  ripened  there  to  a 
marvelous  harvest;  but  even  the  exultation  of  success  and  the 
gravity  of  power  had  not  changed  in  him  the  woman-hke  avid- 
ity of  hatred,  the  grotesque  rapacity  of  spoliation,  which  he 
still  cherished  against  the  inanimate  things  of  gold  and  silver 
and  stone  and  wood  which  had  been  the  household  gods  of  the 
race  lie  cursei.  It  remained  the  single  weakness  in  a  steel- 
clad  life. 

As  he  entered  the  House,  to  which  he  had  once  come  on 
suffrage,  and  which  he  had  made  the  scene  of  as  complete  a 
triumph  as  the  perseverance  and  the  ability  of  man  ever  wrung 
from  hostile  fortune  and  hostile  faction,  all  eyes  turned  ea- 
gerly on  him.  There  was  the  murmur  of  welcome  and  imim- 
tience;  the  benches  were  all  full,  at  midnight,  with  a  crowded 
and  heated  audience.  His  measure  had  been  received  with  a 
vehement  partisanship,  violence  in  opposition,  violence  in  alh- 
ance;  and  his  coming  was  watched  for  at  once  with  irritation 
and  anxiety.  He  made  his  way  to  his  seat,  cool,  keen,  bright 
— as  he  would  have  gone  alike  to  be  crowned  as  a  king  or  to 
be  htoUged  as  a  scoundrel.  Moments  of  emergency  were  the 
tonics  that  he  loved  best,  the  wine  that  gave  the  fullest  flavor 
of  his  life;  and  none  could  have  arrived  to  him  that  would 
ever  have  foujid  him  unprepared — none  save  one  which  to- 
night waited  for  him. 

Other  members  had  risen  as  he  entered,  but  there  were  loud 
imperious  cries  for  his  name;  the  Commons  were  in  one  of 
their  turbulent  tempers,  when  they  riot  hke  ill-broke  hounds, 
and  they  would  have  none  other  than  the  man  who  had  learned 
to  play  upon  their  varying  moods  as  a  skilled  hand  plays  on 
an  organ.  He  had  brought  his  measure  through  the  tem- 
pestuous surf  of  two  readings;  it  was  now  for  him  to  ride  it 
througA  the  last  breakers  and  pass  it  into  the  haven  by  which 
it  would  become  law.  It  was  thought  strangely  careless  that 
he  should  be  late  on  such  a  night;  but  this  was  the  temper  of 
the  man — to  be  daringly  independent  at  all  hazards,  and  to 
take  his  revenge  on  a  party  that  had  been  glad  of  him,  but 
that  had  never  fairly  relished  his  alliance,  by  caprices  which 
made  them  wait  his  pleasure,  which  kept  them  ever  uncertain 
of  his  intentions,  and  for  which  his  popularity  gave  him  full 
and  free  immunity. 

As  he  rose  to  speak,  the  winged  words  paused  on  his  lips, 
his  eyes  grew  fixed  with  a  set,  astonished  gaze;  he  stood  for  a 


CHANDOS.  569 

moment  silent,  with  his  hand  lying  on  the  rail;  his  glance  met 
that  of  Chandos. 

Among  the  nobles  and  the  strangers  who  had  come  down  to 
listen  to  the  debate,  he  saw  the  form  that  he  had  unce  seen 
senseless  and  strengthless  on  the  wretched  pallet  in  a  Paris 
garret,  where  he  had  watched  the  throbbing  of  the  heart  under 
the  naked  breast,  and  had  thought  that  he  would  have  well 
loved  to  still  it  forever  with  an  inch  of  steel,  had  not  a  wider 
torture  been  found  in  letting  it  beat  on  to  suli'er.  The  burden 
of  the  years  seemed  fallen  from  Chandos,  and  to  him  had  re- 
turned, though  saddened  and  grave  with  thought,  and  with  a 
melancholy  that  would  never  now  wholly  pass  away,  much  of 
the  proud,  sun-lightened  beauty  of  his  early  manhood.  Tlie 
vivid  sweetness  of  passion  was  once  more  his;  the  inheritance 
of  his  fathers  was  recovered;  the  might  of  avenging  justice  had 
been  given  to  his  hand;  above  all,  he  was  an  exile  no  more. 
He  looked  as  he  had  looked  in  the  days  of  the  past. 

The  animal  thirst  to  kill,  of  which  he  had  spoken,  had  risen; 
his  veins  seemed  to  run  fire;  there  was  a  wild  triumph  in  his 
blood  even  while  the  heart-sickness  at  his  traitor's  baseness 
was  upon  him.  It  was  his  to  avenge,  to  chastise,  to  pay  back 
a  life-long  wrong,  to  unmask  a  life-long  infamy,  to  hurl  his  foe 
from  the  purples  of  power  and  point  out  in  the  sight  of  the 
people  the  plague-spot  on  the  breast  of  the  man  they  caressed. 
It  was  his,  this  vengeance  which  would  cast  his  traitor  down, 
in  the  midst  of  tlie  fullness  of  life,  from  the  height  of  his 
throned  successes.  It  was  his  at  last,  this  power  denied  so 
long,  which  should  pierce  the  bronze  of  his  enemy's  laughing 
mockery  and  shatter  to  dust  the  adamant  of  his  invulnerable 
strength.  It  was  his  at  last  this  avenging  might  which  should 
reach  even  the  brute  heart  that  had  seemed  of  granite,  callous 
to  feel,  impenetrable  to  strike.  And  he  felt  drunk  with  it  as 
with  alcohol;  he  felt  that  its  worst  work  would  never  plow 
deep  enough,  never  blast  wide  enough. 

"Oh,  God,"  he  thought,  "how  can  vengeance  enough 
strike  him?  None  can  give  me  back  all  that  he  killed  forever! 
'  Just  to  the  end.'  He  shall  have  justice — the  justice  of  the 
oldlaw— a 'lifeforalife!"' 

And,  as  their  eyes  met,  the  chill  of  the  first  fear  his  life  had 
ever  known  passed  over  Trevenna;  a  vague,  shapeless  horror 
seized  him;  he  knew  that  never  would  the  disinherited  have 
returned  to  his  forsaken  land  unless  the  doom  of  banishment 
had  been  taken  from  him,  unless  some  power  of  all  that  he 
had  been  dispossessed  of  had  recoiled  back  into  his  grasp.  For 
the  moment — one  brief,  lli'Lting,  uncounted  second — he  stood 


570  CHANDOS. 

paralyzed  tliere,  the  uuformed  dread,  the  venomous  hatred  in 
liini  making  him  forgetful  of  all  save  the  eyes  that  were  turned 
on  him,  eyes  that  seemed  to  quote  against  him  the  whole  his- 
tory of  his  life.  He  had  no  conscience,  he  had  no  shame,  lie 
had  never  known  what  fear  was,  and  he  had  ascended  to  an 
eminence  from  which  he  would  have  defied  the  force  of  the 
world  to  eject  him;  and  yet  in  that  single  instant  a  terror 
scarce  less  keen,  less  ghastly,  than  that  which  an  assassin  would 
feel  at  sight  of  the  living  form  of  the  prey  he  had  left  for  dead 
came  on  him  as  in  the  lighted  assembly,  in  the  midnight  si- 
lence in  which  his  own  words  were  awaited,  he  saw  the  face  of 
Chandos.  It  joassed  away  almost  as  instantaneously  as  it  had 
moved  him;  the  bold  audacity,  the  dauntless  courage,  the 
caustic  mirth,  the  mocking  triumph  of  his  temper  reasserted 
themselves;  instantly,  ere  any  others  had  had  space  to  note  the 
momentary  pause,  and  the  momentary  paralysis  which  had 
arrested  the  eloquence  on  his  lijos  and  chained  his  gaze  to  the 
features  of  the  man  whom  he  had  wronged,  he  was  himself 
again;  he  recovered  the  shaken  balance  of  his  priceless  coolness; 
he  looked  across  the  long  space  jmrting  him  from  his  antag- 
onist with  a  full,  firm,  laughing  insolence  in  the  sunny  bravery 
of  his  blue  eyes;  his  voice  rolled  out  on  the  hushing  murmurs 
and  the  broken  whispers  of  the  great  gathering,  mellow,  reso- 
nant, far-reaching  as  a  clarion,  clear  as  though  each  syllable 
were  told  out  on  a  silver  drum. 

The  man  he  hated  was  before  him;  the  man  in  whom  he  had 
seen  incarnated  all  the  things  against  which  his  life  had  been 
arrayed,  all  the  wrongs  that  he  had  cherished  till  the  cocka- 
trice brood  had  bred  a  giant  vengeance;  the  man  whom  he 
had  hated  but  the  more  the  more  he  injured  him;  the  man 
whom  he  best  loved,  of  any  in  the  world,  should  see  the  emi- 
nence, the  power,  the  sovereignty  which  he — the  adventurer, 
the  outsider — had  aspired  to  and  won.  Chandos  was  before 
him,  witness  of  his  sway,  spectator  of  his  triumph,  hearer  of 
his  words.  He  swore  in  his  teeth,  even  in  that  moment  when 
their  glance  first  met,  that  oratory  and  triumph  and  sway 
should  never  be  so  victorious  as  they  should  be  to-night;  that 
he  would  fight  as  he  had  never  fought,  that  he  vrould  win  as 
he  had  never  won,  that  this  chamber  should  ring  with  accla- 
mations for  him  as  it  had  never  yet  rung  with  them,  favored 
and  crowned  there  though  he  was.  The  one  whom  of  all 
others  in  the  breadth  of  the  empires  he  would  have  chosen  as 
the  beholder  of  his  fame  fronted  him.  To  Trevenna  the  hour 
was  as  it  was  to  Sulla  when  the  great  Desert  King  whom  he 
hiid  con(iuered  and  weighted  with  chains,  and  brought  from 


CHANDOS.  671 

the  golden  suns  and  royal  freedom  of  his  own  warm  land  to 
the  bath  of  ice  of  the  Tullianum,  stood  fettered  to  behold  the 
ovation  given  to  the  welcomed  victor  of  the  Jugurthine  War. 

To  Trevenna  it  was  the  crown  of  the  edifice  that  his  own 
mighty  patience  and  unresting  brain  had  raised  out  of  the 
dust  and  ashes  of  a  banned  and  nameless  life,  when  into  his 
own  arena,  before  his  own  idolaters,  the  man  in  whom  the 
whole  passions  of  that  life  had  seen  their  deepest  hate  em- 
bodied came  to  behold  his  triumph.  Though  he  should  have 
died  for  it  with  the  dawn,  he  would  have  made  that  night  the 
night  of  his  supreme  success,  or  j^erished.  There  was  in  him 
the  temper  which  in  old  days  made  men  take  oath  to  their 
gods  to  gain  the  battle  though  they  should,  as  its  price,  be 
cast  headlong  to  the  foe.  In  that  moment  he  rose  beyond 
egotism  into  something  infinitely  grander;  in  that  moment, 
however  guilty,  he  was  great. 

And  he  spoiie  greatly. 

The  fire  of  jiersonal  hate,  the  weakness  of  personal  triumph, 
did  but  serve  as  spur  and  as  stimulant  to  the  genius  in  him. 
To  know  that  the  eyes  of  Chaudos  looked  on  him  was  to  lash 
his  strength  into  tenfold  performance;  to  know  that  Chandos 
heard  his  words  was  to  form  them  into  tenfold  eloquence.  It 
was  not  only  to  invective,  to  rhetoric,  that  he  rose;  but  the 
brilliance  of  thought,  the  closeness  of  argument,  the  fineness 
of  subtlety,  the  vastness  of  memory,  were  beyond  compare. 
Men  who  had  held  him  a  master  ere  this  listened  breathless, 
and  marveled  that  even  they  never  had  known  what  his  power 
could  be.  Wit,  reason,  learning,  raillery,  wisdom,  and  logic 
were  pressed,  turn  by  turn,  into  his  service,  and  used  with  such 
oratory  as  had  rarely  rung  through  that  chamber.  He  was 
what  he  had  never  been;  he  surpassed  all  that  he  had  ever 
achieved:  and  when  his  last  words  closed,  thunder  on  thunder 
of  applause  rolled  out  as  in  the  days  when  Sheridan  bewitched 
or  Chatham  awed  the  listening  and  enchanted  crowds.  Once 
his  eyes  flashed  on  Chandos  as  the  cheers  reeled  through  the 
body  of  the  House;  no  other  caught  that  glance  in  which  the 
victory  of  a  life-time  was  expressed. 

He  to  whom  it  was  given  saw  it,  and  his  head  sunk  slightly; 
darkness  gathered  over  his  face;  the  thought  of  his  heart  was 
bitter,  less  in  that  moment  for  himself  than  of  mankind.  He 
thought,  "  How  great,  to  be  so  vile!*' 

That  night  was  the  proudest  of  John  Trevenna's  triumphs. 

The  bill  passed,  carried  by  an  overwhelming  majorit}^ 
which  secured  stability  to  the  Treasury  benches  and  sealed  the 
trust  of  the  nation  in  them.     If  he  had  been  high  in  men's 


572  CHANDOS. 

fame  and  favor  before,  he  was  unapproaclied  now,  as  on  theii 
tongues  through  the  whole  of  the  late  night  his  name  and  his 
genius  alone  were  spoken.  For  it  had  been  genius  to  which 
he  had  risen,  genius  that  had  given  the  fire  to  his  words,  the 
persuasion  to  his  speech,  the  resistless  force  to  his  command, 
that  had  borne  him  out  of  himself  into  that  loftier  power 
which  maizes  of  men  as  they  listen  the  reeds  that  sway  to  (he 
wind  of  the  magical  voice — genius  that  had  wakened  in  him 
under  the  consciousness  of  one  glance  that  watched,  of  one  ear 
that  heard.  And  for  once,  in  its  pride  and  its  dominion,  cau- 
tion and  coolness  slightly  forsook  him;  his  ej'es  glittered,  his 
forehead  was  flushed,  his  smile  laughed  as  one  warmed  with 
wine,  as  he  went  out  to  the  night. 

As  the  air  of  the  dawn  blew  en  his  face,  his  shoulder  was 
grasped  by  a  hand  that  forced  him  forward.  Chandos's  words 
were  spoken  low  on  his  ear— 

"  Out  yonder!— come  in  peace,  or  I  shall  forget  myself,  and 
deal  with  you  before  the  men  you  fool." 

Trevenna  gave  one  swift  glance  upward.  Though  bold  to 
the  core  with  a  leonine  courage,  he  shrunk,  and  quailed,  and 
sickened.  That  one  glance  told  him  more  than  hours  conld 
have  spoken.  He  felt  as  though  a  knife  had  been  plunged  and 
plunged  again  into  his  heart,  seeking  the  life  and  draining  the 
blood. 

"Lead  on!"  he  said,  between  his  teeth;  "lead  on,  what- 
ever you  want.  You  and  I  need  not  waste  pretty  words,  I?eau 
sire. " 

He  felt  the  hand  that  was  on  his  shoulder  clinch  closer  and 
closer  till  it  tightened  like  an  iron  clasp.  In  the  darkness, 
through  the  throngs,  under  the  fitful  glare  of  the  gas,  the 
pressure  of  that  hand  forced  him  away  out  of  the  masses  and 
the  noise  and  the  tumult  of  the  streets,  down  into  the  quiet  of 
the  cloisters,  where  the  gray  beauty  of  the  Abbey  rose  in  the 
haze  of  the  starless  mists  of  earliest  dawn.  Then,  where  they 
stood  alone  under  the  darkling  pile,  that  clasp  loosed  its  hold 
and  flung  him  backward  as  men  fling  snakes  off  their  wrist. 
Chandos  faced  him  in  the  dim  gray  solitude;  the  passions  that 
had  been  held  in  rein  whilst  he  watched  for  his  foe  broke  loose 
as  he  stood  alone  with  the  man  whose  present  held  so  jDroud 
an  eminence,  whose  past  he  had  traced  into  such  sinks  of  vil- 
lainy, whose  favor  was  so  sightless  in  the  nation's  si^ht,  whose 
guilt  had  been  so  vile  to  net,  and  pierce,  and  drain,  and  rob, 
and  ruin  him. 

**  You  have  fooled  your  world  for  the  last  time  to-night; 


CHANDOS.  573 

with  another  day  it  will  known  you  as  you  are — you  usr^rer 
who  traded  in  your  friends'  worst  needs!" 

The  words  cut  the  air  like  the  cords  of  a  scourge  lead"= 
weighted.  In  that  instant  it  was  all  he  could  do  not  to  stamjj 
out  under  his  feet  the  life  before  hira,  as  men  tread  out  an  un- 
clean beast  whose  breath  is  poison.  Ere  the  words  were 
spoken,  Trevenna  had  known  that  the  day  of  his  retribution 
had  come  to  him — a  day  his  acumen  had  never  foreseen,  a  day 
his  skill  had  never  forecast.  One  glance  had  told  him  that 
his  prey  had  changed  to  his  accuser,  that  the  man  he  had  exiled 
and  beggared  and  reviled  had  come  back  to  take  his  venge- 
ance, For  a  moment  the  sickness  of  the  despair  that  he  had 
often  dealt,  and  often  laughed  at,  blinded  him,  and  made  the 
pale  shadow  of  the  stormy  dawn  reel  round  him:  the  next,  his 
blood  rose  before  peril,  and  his  wit  grew  but  keener  in  dan- 
ger. He  planted  himself  firmly,  with  his  arms  folded  across 
his  chest. 

"  "We  need  not  waste  pretty  words,  but  we  need  not  use  such 
ugly  ones,'' he  said,  coolly.  "If  3'ou  called  me  ont  to  talk 
libel,  why — there  are  courts  in  which  you'll  have  to  make  it 
good.  You  always  were  bitter  about  my  success;  but  you 
needn't  be  tragic.  You're  savage,  I  suppose,  because  the  Mad 
Duke's  dead,  and  I  shall  get  my  way  and  buy  up  Clarencieux 
for  auld  lang  syne!" 

Chandos's  hands  fell  once  more  on  both  his  shoulders,  sway- 
ing him  back  and  holding  him  motionless  there,  as  they  had 
held  the  frail  form  of  the  musician  under  the  marble  Cruci- 
fixion at  Venice.  In  the  gloom  his  eyes  burned  down  into  his 
foe's;  his  face  was  darkly  flushed  and  mercilessly  set,  as  though 
it  were  cast  in  stone:  the  muscles  swelled  like  cords  upon  his 
arms  and  throat.  He  could  have  strangled  this  vampire  that 
had  drained  all  the  best  life  of  his  youth — the  worst  chastise- 
ment that  he  could  never  wreak  was  so  tardy,  so  tame,  so  vain, 
so  ill  proportioned,  beside  the  vastness  of  his  wrongs! 

"  8peak  one  more  lie,  and  I  shall  kill  you.  Clarencieux  is 
mine;  but  for  your  infamy,  I  had  never  lost  it.  Silence — 
silence,  I  tell  you,  or  I  shall  choke  you  like  a  dog!  The  Jew 
who  w^as  your  victim  and  your  tool  confessed  all  to  me  in  his 
dying  hour.  isTot  a  thing  in  your  life  is  hidden  from  me;  not 
a  thread  in  your  net-work  of  villainy  has  esca2:)ed  me.  You 
are  free  of  the  law,  perhaps — you  were  too  wise  to  break  it  in 
the  letter;  but  the  world  shall  know  you  as  I  know  you;  the 
world  shall  be  your  judge  and  my  avenger.  I  will  give  you 
justice — pure  justice.  I  will  uumask  you  as  you  arc,  and 
leave*  the  rest  to  follow.    The  men  you  ruined,  the  friends  you 


574  CHANDOS. 

traded  in,  the  usurjeB  that  made  your  wealth,  the  frauds  yoq 
worked  under  a  legal  shield,  the  treacherous,  shameless,  ac- 
cursed trade  you  drove  in  the  lives  of  those  who  trusted  you 
and  fed  you  and  sheltered  you— I  shall  leave  my  vengeance  to 
them;  they  will  repay  it  more  utterly  than  I  could  now  if  I 
laid  you  dead,  like  the  snake  you  are!" 

Wiiere  John  Trevenna  stood,  his  bright  and  fearless  face 
grew  white  as  a  woman's,  a  tremor  shook  him  as  the  wind 
shakes  a  leaf,  a  cold  sweat  was  dank  on  his  forehead:  he  an- 
swered_  nothing;  he  was  too  wise  to  dream  of  vain  denial,  too 
hold  still  to  betray  terror;  but  he  knew  that  he  had  fallen  into 
the  power  of  the  one  living  man  whose  most  merciless  venge- 
ance would  be  but  sheer  and  simple  justice,  he  knew  that  tho 
serpent  of  his  unsparing  hate  had  recoiled  and  fastened  its 
venomous  fangs  into  his  own  veins;  he  knew  that  the  antag- 
onist  who  stood  above  liim,  holding  him  there  in  that  grasp  of 
steel,  would  speak  no  more  than  he  had  power  to  work  out  to 
the  uttermost  letter;  he  knew  that  from  that  hour,  at  Chan- 
dos'  will  and  choice,  the  magnificent  superstructure  of  his 
proud  ambitions  would  crumble  like  a  toy  of  sand,  and  the 
bead-roll  of  his  riches  and  his  dignities  wither  like  a  scroll  in 
fire  under  the  scorch  of  shame.  The  agony  and  desolation  of 
a  life-time  were  pressed  into  that  one  instant,  which  seemed 
eternity. 

Yet  the  courage  in  him  neither  cowed  nor  jDleaded.  "  It  is 
easy  to  put  lies  in  dead  men's  mouths!"  he  said,  with  his  old 
insolence,  with  his  old  coolness;  "  and  Jews  have  borne  false 
witness  since  the  world  began.  It  will  take  a  little  more  than 
a  vamped-up  slander  to  unseat  me,  mon  beau  monsieur!" 

Chandos  swayed  him  to  and  fro  as  though  he  were  a  child. 
The  voice,  the  glance,  the  j^resence  of  his  enemy  maddened 
him;  he  feared  the  work  of  his  own  jjassions;  he  felt  drunk 
with  the  delirium  of  hate  and  wrong. 

"  Silence! — if  you  care  for  your  own  life — you  traitor,  who 
eat  my  bread  and  betrayed  me,  who  took  my  shelter  and 
robbed  me!  The  commerce  you  drove  in  men 's*^ miseries,  the 
friends  you  netted  into  your  bondage,  the  thefts  that  made  up 
your  wealth,  the  secrets  you  stole  to  trade  in,  the  slaves  yoif 
ruled  with  your  tyrannies— I  know  them;  with  another  day, 
the  world  will  know  them  through  me.  Listen!  All  the  evil 
you  churned  into  gold  with  that  dead  Hebrew  for  your  tool, 
all  the  years  that  you  throve  on  that  barter  of  men's  disgrace 
and  men's  fears,  all  the  iniquities  that  went  to  make  up  your 
rise  into  wealth,  all  the  tortures  you  dealt  on  the  servant  who 
served  you  so  faithfully,  when,  to  screen  your  own  crime,  you 


CHANBOS.  575 

sent  him  out  in  old  age  amoug  felons,  all  the  shame  and  the 
sin  of  your  past,  I  know,  and  can  prove  to  disgrace  you  for- 
ever. I  warn  you;  I  will  not  have  so  much  likeness  with  you 
as  to  steal  on  you,  even  in  justice,  lii^e  a  thief  in  the  night; 
but — as  God  lives — if  the  law  fail  to  give  me  redress,  1  will  so 
blast  your  name  through  all  Europe  tliat  the  foulest  criminal 
who  hides  for  a  murder  shall  be  held  to  be  worthier  than  you 
— you  who  slew  like  Iscariot,  never  knowing  Iscariot's  re- 
morse. Sum  up  the  lives  you  have  destroyed;  they  will  be 
your  accusers,  they  will  be  my  avengers!'^ 

The  breathless  magnificence  of  the  fiery  wrath  was  poured 
out  on  the  hush  of  night;  the  moment  in  which  every  joy  and 
power  he  had  possessed  had  been  struck  down  by  his  enemy's 
hand  was  dealt  back  at  last,  as  with  one  blow  lie  shivered  to 
the  dust  the  honors,  the  dignities,  the  ambitions,  the  victorious 
and  secure  successes  of  the  career  that  had  so  bitterly  mocked, 
so  mercilessly  cursed,  his  own. 

Trevenna  staggered  slightly,  and  an  oath  of  prurient  blas- 
phemy was  crashed  through  the  locked  firmness  of  his  clinched 
teeth.  He  saw  at  a  glance  how  he  had  been  given  over  to  his 
antagonist's  power;  he  knew  without  words  how  out  of  the 
multitude  of  his  unmatched  successes  one  rope-strand  had 
given  way  and  dragged  the  whole  superb  edifice  of  a  life's 
labors  with  it.  He  never  denied:  he  was  too  keen  to  sham  a 
guiltlessness  that  would  have  availed  nothing  save  to  render 
him  contemptible;  he  never  gave  a  sign  of  terror:  he  was  too 
bold  not  even  in  that  moment  to  retain  his  courage.  But  he 
laughed — a  hard,  rasped,  bitter  laugh,  that  sounded  horribly 
on  the  silence.  In  that  instant  of  supreme  peril,  of  utter  deso- 
lation, the  keenest  pang  to  him  was  not  even  his  own  extrem- 
ity, his  own  shame,  but  was  the  restoration  of  the  disinherited 
to  the  land  of  his  birth  and  of  his  love;  it  was  stranger  still, 
though  part  and  parcel  of  his  nature,  that  the  cynic  humor  of 
his  temper  found  a  broad  farcical  mockery  of  himself  in  the 
ruin  that  recoiled  on  him  in  the  hour  of  the  most  splendid 
domination  his  genius  had  ever  yet  attained. 

He  saw  that  the  man  he  had  wronged  knew  how  he  had 
wronged  him;  ho  saw  that  enough  had  been  told  of  the  ruined 
lives  which  had  been  the  stones  to  upbuild  the  stately  temple 
of  his  celebrity  and  his  eminence  to  drive  him  out  forever  a 
dishonored  outlaw;  but  he  laughed  for  all  that,  and  his  eyes, 
glittering  like  blue  steel  through  the  mists,  met  those  of  (."han- 
dos  without  ilinching. 

"  Life's  a  see-saw;  I  always  said  so.     Are  yon  going  to  rido 


576  CHANDOS. 

a-top  again?  Scarcely  fair;  you  fooled  away  such  lordlj 
chauces!'* 

'*  I  fooled  away  my  faith,  and  gave  it  to  a  liar  and  a  tricks, 
ter  who  took  my  hand  iu  friendship  while  he  stabbed  me  in 
the  back!" 

"  J) — n  you!  I  hated  3"ou;  I  never  said  I  didn't.  I  cursed 
you  '  in  your  uprising  and  your  downlying/  as  the  '  man  after 
God's  own  heart '  cursed  his  enemies." 

"  And  why?     How  had  I  ever  wronged  you?" 

"  Did  you  never  guess?" 

He  spoke  with  the  snarl  of  a  bull-dog  at  bay;  an  agony  was 
on  him  as  intense  as  the  worst  torture  he  had  ever  dealt  to 
others;  but  the  firmness  of  his  attitude  never  changed,  and  his 
voice,  though  bitter  as  gall,  never  shook. 

Chandos's  eyes  dwelt  on  him  with  the  kingly  luster  of  scorn 
with  which  the  eyes  of  Viriathus  might  have  looked  upon  the 
traitor  lieges  who  sold  him  for  Roman  gold  to  Roman  steel. 

"  You  eat  my  bread,  and  betrayed  me;  it  was  enough  to 
beget  your  hate.'' 

Wider  rebuke  no  words  ever  uttered. 

Under  them,  for  the  instant  of  their  utterance,  a  red  flush 
burnt  in  Trevenua's  face,  a  pang  of  shame  smote  a  shameless 
heart.  The  memory  of  both  went  backward  to  that  distant 
time  when  no  gift  had  been  too  great  for  the  royal  largesse  of 
the  one  to  lavish  on  the  other,  whose  only  coin  of  requital  had 
been — treachery. 

1'revenna's  white,  close-shnt  lips  laughed  slightly  with  that 
ironic  truth  which  he  had  never  spared  himself. 

"  Well,  that  was  enough — more  than  enough.  We're  all 
cuckoos  at  soul,  and  kick  out  those  who  feed  us.  Bat  my  hate 
went  farther  back  than  that.  I  hated  you  when  you  were  a 
child,  and  I  trampled  out  your  sweetmeats  in  the  street.  I 
hated  you  when  I  was  an  ugly  young  clown,  and  j^ou  rode  with 
your  servants  after  you  and  your  gold  hair  a-flying  in  the 
wind.  I  hated  you  when  you  were  a  baby-aristocrat,  when 
you  were  a  boy-patrician.  I  hated  your  laugh,  and  your  voice 
and  your  womanish  beauty;  and  I  swore  to  pull  you  down  and 
get  up  in  your  place.  I  cursed  you  then,  as  I  curse  you 
now! 

The  intense  virulence  that  ran  through  the  words  left  no 
doubt  of  their  veracity. 

Chandos,  where  he  stood,  gazed  at  him  mute  with  amaze*, 
to  his  own  knowledge,  he  had  never  beheld  this  enemy  of  his 
whole  life  until  the  days  of  his  young  manhood,  when  with  his 
gold  he  had   released   from   a  debtors'   prison   one  who  had 


CHANDOS.  577 

proved  the  tempter  and  destroyer  of  all  he  owned  on  earth. 
This  animosity  that  stretched  out  to  the  childish  years  of  his 
bright  infancy  stole  on  him  like  the  cold,  clinging,  sickly  coils 
of  an  asp. 

"  Are  you  a  madman?"  he  said,  under  his  breath.  "In 
my  childhood! — how  could  I  wrong  you  then?'^ 

Trevenna  looked  at  him  doggedly,  with  a  red,  sullen  fire  in 
his  blue  eyes  like  the  angry  flame  in  a  mastin'?  ^yebalJs:  It 
was  deadly  as  death  to  him  to  part  with  that  one  secret — the 
secret  of  his  life. 

"  Answer  me!  answer!  or,  by  God,  I  shall  do  worse  to  you! 
Why  was  it?" 

"  Because  I  was  your  father^s  bastard!" 
The  reply  left  Trevenna 's  lips  very  slowly;  to  him  it  was  as 
the  drawing  of  a  jagged  steel  out  of  a  deep,  festering  wound. 

His  listener  fell  back  as  though  a  shot  had  struck  him,  his 
face  death-white,  his  eyes  dilated  with  abhorrence. 
"Great  God!     Jf^  father's— " 
Trevenna  laughed — a  short,  contemptuous  laugh. 
"Ay!   why  not?     You  dainty  gentlemen  never  remember 
your  illegitimate  sons  and  brothers  that  are  flung  ofE  to  go  to 
hell  as  they  will;  but  they  may  crop  up  awkwardly  in  spite  of 
you.      They  are  unowned  mongrels,   banned  before  they^ra 
born;  but  they've  the  same  blood  in  them  as  you  have." 
Chandos  breathed  heavily;  a  sickening  loathing  was  upon  him. 
"  It  is  false!  false  as  your  own  life! — a  fraud  vamped  up  to 
cover  your  own  villainy.     You  have  no  bond  of  blood  with 
mine!" 

"  But  for  that  bond  of  blood,  you  would  have  been  free  from 
me.     I  have  as  much  of  your  ancestry  in  me  as  you  have." 

The  words  were  dogged,  but  they  bore  truth  with  them. 
Chandos  lifted  his  arm  with  an  involuntary  gesture  to  silence 
with  a  blow  the  hps  that  claimed  kinship  with  him. 
"  You  hound!  you  dare  to  say  that  Philip  Chandos — " 
"  Was  my  father  just  as  much  as  he  was  yours.  Curse  him 
and  his  memory  both!  Pshaw!  You  can  strike  me  if  you 
like;  I  only  say  the  truth.  Look  here.  I  loved  my  mother; 
I  never  loved  anything  else — even  mongrels  love  their  dams, 
you  know — and  she  was  one  of  your  father's  mistresses.  He 
paid  her  off  when  he  married  a  duke's  daughter— paid  liand- 
somely,  that  I  don't  deny;  but  she  neither  forgot  nor  forgave, 
and  she  trained  me  to  avenge  her.  She  used  to  take  and  show 
me  you  in  all  your  grace  and  your  luxury,  and  she  would  say 
in  my  ear,  '  There  is  your  father's  heir:  when  you  are  both 
menj  make  him  change  places  v/itli  you.'    I  was  taught  to 


578  CHANDOS. 

hate  and  destroy  you,  as  other  boys  are  taught  their  prayers. 
I  did  it  thoroughly,  I  i&ncj.  I'd  vengeance  for  a  foster- 
nurse,  and  sucked  hate  as  Caligula  sucked  blood:  both  Calig- 
ula and  I  took  to  the  milk  kindly!  I  had  as  much  of  the 
famous  '  Clarencieux  race '  in  me  as  you  had;  and  you  had  all 
the  gifts  of  the  gods  while  I  was  a  nameless  cross-breed  cur, 
only  bred  to  be  kicked  to  the  streets.  Ton  won  the  chariot- 
race,  while  the  people  shouted,  '  A  patrician!'— /was  sent  out 
to  wrestle  with  the  base-born  in  the  Eing  of  Cynosarges. 
Well,  I  swore  with  Themistocles  to  drag  in  the  Eupatrid  to 
wrestle  with  the  Bastard,  and  teach  him  that  the  Bastard  could 
throw  him.     Don't  you  know  wow  why  I  hated  you?" 

Chandos  stood  silent,  livid,  breathless;  this  endless  hate 
borne  to  him  from  his  birth  up  seemed  to  press  on  him  with  a 
weight  like  granite;  this  kinship  claimed  to  him  by  the  traitor, 
whose  guilt  he  would  have  compassed  heaven  and  earth  to 
have  exposed  and  have  arraigned,  revolted  him  with  a  loath- 
ing horror. 

"Why? — why?"  he  echoed,  mechanically.  "No!— you 
are  only  viler  than  I  knew  before.  What  wrong  had  I  ever 
wrought  you?" 

"  How  had  Abel  wronged  Cain?  By  having  the  favor  of 
earth  and  heaven!"  said  Trevenna  between  his  teeth,  that 
veere  still  tight-shut.  "  I  hated  you  because  I  was  not  as  you 
were.  Every  good  you  did  me,  every  gift  you  gave  me,  every 
liberality  that  marked  you  the  noble  and  I  the  adventurer— 
you  the  patron  and  I  the  debtor— only  made  me  hate  you  the 
more,  only  made  me  swear  the  more  to  tempt  and  hunt  and 
drag  you  down,  and  see  your  pride  in  the  dust,  and  your  her- 
itage given  to  the  spoilers,  my  brilliant,  careless,  kingly 
hrother!" 

The  word  hissed  through  the  stillness  of  the  dawn  with  the 
lust  of  a  Cain  centered  in  it.  If  a  word  could  have  slain,  that 
•word  should  have  slaughtered  with  the  slaughter  of  Cain. 

Chandos  shivered  as  he  heard  it— such  a  shiver  as  will  pass 
through  the  bravest  blood  when  the  gleam  of  an  assassin's 
knife  flashes  out  through  the  gloom.  The  bond  that  his  vilest 
foe  claimed  to  him  seemed  to  taint  and  shame  him  with  it? 
own  pollution. 

*' This  cuts  you  hard?  Come!  that  is  a  comfort!  I  have 
some  vengeance  yet,  then.  You  can't  break  our  kinship! 
But— you  are  just;  you  will  be  just  to  me,"  pursued  Trevenna. 
"  I  knew  that  I  had  the  making  of  a  great  man  in  me,  and  I 
was  born  into  the  world  cursed  beforehand  as  a  harlot's  son 
whom  every  fool  could  gibe  at.     I  knew  that  I  had  the  brain 


CHANDOS.  579 

and  the  strength  anil  the  power  to  reach  the  highest  ambitions, 
and  I  found  myself  clogged  at  the  starting-point  with  the  ton- 
weight  of  bastardy.  I  was  shut  out  from  every  fair  chance, 
because  my  mother  had  worn  no  gold  toy  on  her  finger;  my 
whole  existence  was  damned,  because  a  bar  sinister  stretched 
across  it.  The  blot  on  my  birth,  as  idiots  call  it,  was  the  devil 
that  tempted  me;  and  no  gifts  and  no  good  faith  of  yours 
could  touch  me  while  you  remained  what  I  envied:  they  only 
made  me  hate  you  the  more,  because  now  and  then  they 
burned  down  into  what  cant  will  call  Conscience.  I  hated  the 
world;  I  hated  your  order;  I  hated  your  race  and  your  house, 
and  all  things  that  were  yours.  I  swore  that  I  would  win  in 
the  teeth  of  it  sll;  I  swore  that  I  would  conquer,  cost  what  it 
should.  I  was  guilty,  you'd  say;  pshaw!  what  of  that?  '  He 
who  wins  is  the  saint;  he  who  loses,  the  sinner.-'  "What  did  I 
care  for  guilt,  so  long  as  I  once  had  success?  I  joroved  the 
mettle  I  was  made  of;  I  carved  my  own  fortunes;  I  trod  my 
shame  down  under  foot  so  that  none  ever  guessed  it;  I  vindicat- 
ed my  own  rights  against  all  the  world.  I  triumphed:  what 
else  mattered  to  me?'' 

There  was  a  certain  dauntless  grandeur  in  the  words,  despite 
all  the  shameless  hardihood,  the  brutalized  idolatry  of  self, 
that  ran  in  them;  his  means  had  been  vile,  but  his  indomit- 
able resolve  had  its  element  of  greatness,  and  the  hour  of  liis 
direst  extremity  could  not  make  this  man  a  coward.  There 
was  that  in  the  words  which,  foul  as  they  were  to  himself, 
.touched  Chandos  to  the  same  passionate  regret  for  this  vile- 
ness  of  nature  that  ran  side  by  side  with  this  splendor  of  cour- 
age, as  had  moved  him  when  he  listened  to  the  genius  of  the 
traitor  whose  secret  villainies  he  came  to  unmask  and  avenge. 

"Oh,  Christ!"  he  cried,  involuntarily,  "with  so  much 
greatness,  how  could  you  sink  into  such  utter  shame?  Why 
have  hated  and  tortured  me?     Why  not  have  trusted  me?" 

For  the  moment,  over  Trevenna's  face  a  softer,  better  look 
passed,  though  it  died  instantly.     This  man,  whom  he  had  ~ 
wrought  worse  work  on  than  murderers  do,  knew  the  depths 
of  his  iniquity,  and  yet  had  a  noble  regret  for  him! 

"  Why  ?  Don't  you  know  what  hate  is,  that  you  ask?"  he 
said,  savagely.  "  Oh,  I  don't  lie  to  you  now,  because  you 
have  got  me  at  last  in  your  power!  I  would  not  recall  one 
thing  in  the  past  if  I  could.  You  suffered:  I  would  suffer  a 
hell  myself  to  know  that.  You  have  your  Clarencieux  back? 
Well,  that  is  more  bitter  to  mc  than  the  shame  that  you 
threaten.  But  you  will  never  have  back  the  years  that  I 
ruined*'" 


580  ^'HANDOS. 

Chandos  moved  to  him  with  a  sudden  impulse,  as  a  lion 
moves  to  spring. 

"  Are  you  the  devil  incarnate?  God!  can  you  face  me  now 
and  think  without  one  pang  of  remorse  of  all  you  robbed  from 
me  forever?  My  wealth,  my  treasures,  my  lands,  were  as 
nothing;  it  was  the  years  that  you  killed,  the  youth  that  you 
murdered,  the  faith  that  you  withered,  that  you  can  never  re- 
store! I  would  forgive  you  the  gold  that  you  stole,  and  the 
riches  you  scattered;  but  the  life  that  you  slew  in  me — never!" 

lie  turned  away;  he  was  sick  at  heart,  and  he  could  not 
bear  to  look  on  the  face  of  this  man  who  had  betrayed  him  as 
Judas  betrayed,  and  now  claimed  the  kinship  of  blood. 

Trevenna  2:»laced  himself  in  his  path. 

"  One  word.     You  will  take  your  vengeance?" 

"  I  will  have  justice.     You  know  its  measure!" 

"Very  well!  I  thank  you  for  your  warning.  I  shall  be 
dead  before  the  sun  rises.  I  do  not  wait  for  disgrace  while 
the  world  holds  an  ounce  of  lead  in  if 

It  was  no  empty  menace,  no  stage-trick  of  artifice,  no  piece 
of  melodrama:  it  was  a  set  and  firm  I'esolve.  He  who  had 
counted  no  cost  all  his  life  through  to  attain  triumph,  would 
not  have  counted  a  death-pang  to  escape  defeat. 

Chandos's  face  was  dark  and  weary  beyond  words,  as  the 
paleness  of  the  early  dawn  shone  on  it. 

"  You  will  end  a  traitor's  life  by  a  suicide's  death?  So  be 
it:  so  died  Iscariot. " 

Trevenna  said  nothing  either  in  prayer  or  plea;  he  stood 
with  a  bold,  dogged  determination  on  the  features  that  had  a 
few  moments  ago  flushed  with  victorious  j)ride  and  lightened 
with  the  glow  of  intellect.  He  was  made  of  too  tough  a  cour- 
age, too  bright  a  temi:)er,  to  know  a  coward's  fear  of  death; 
and  death  to  him  meant  only  annihilation,  and  conveyed  no 
thought  of  a  possible  "  hereafter."  Yet,  as  he  felt  the  coursr 
of  the  brave  blood  through  his  veins,  the  strength  of  the  virile 
life  in  his  limbs,  as  he  felt  the  might  and  the  force  of  his 
brain,  and  the  power  of  his  genius  to  achieve,  an  anguish  pass- 
ing any  physical  pain  or  poltroon's  terror  came  upon  him. 

•'  To  kill  all  that,  while  fools  live  on,  and  beget  fools  by  the 
million!"  he  said,  ferociously,  in  his  ground  teeth. 

It  was  the  man's  involuntary  homage  to  his  own  intellect, 
his  irrepressible  longing  to  save,  not  his  body  from  its  dissolu- 
tion, but  his  mind  from  its  extinction.  It  was  a  sufl'ering  that 
had  its  dignity;  it  was  a  regret  far  higher  and  far  nobler  than 
a  mere  regret  for  the  loss  of  life. 

Chandos  stood  silent,  his  face  white  and  set.     He  thought 


CHANDOS.  r>g\^ 

liow  mercilessl}'  his  foe  had  done  his  best  to  stamp  out  all  in- 
tellect and  peace  and  power  from  his  own  existence — how 
brutally  he  had  doomed  him  to  perish  like  a  dog  in  the  years 
of  his  youth,  in  the  brilliance  of  his  gladness.  Treveuna 
would  have  but  the  fate  himself  that  he  had  dealt  with  an  un- 
sparing hand.  It  was  no  more  than  justice,  tardy  and  insufR- 
oieut  justice,  take  it  at  its  widest.  He  lifted  his  eyes,  and 
turned  them  full  upon  his  betrayer. 

"  Did  you  ever  remember  that  with  ?ne?" 
The  one  reproach  struck  a  throb  that  was  near  akin  to 
shame  from  the  mailed  callousness  of  Trevenna's  conscience; 
but  his  gaze  did  not  flinch. 

"  No,'*  he  said,  sullenly,  "  I  never  did.  I  would  have 
killed  you  a  thousand  times,  if  you  could  have  died  a  thousand 
deaths.  You  are  right  enough;  I  don't  deny  it.  You  only 
take  blood  for  blood.'' 

"  I  do  not  take  even  that.  I  but  give  you  to  the  world's 
chastisement,  that  the  world  may  know  what  it  harbors." 

"  Call  it  what  name  you  like!  Words  matter  nothing. 
You  will  have  your  vengeance — a  swift  one,  but  a  sure.  See 
here,  Ernest  Chandos.  You  know  what  I  am,  what  I  have 
been.  You  have  seen  how  I  could  keep  hold  of  one  purpose 
through  a  life-time;  you  have  seen  what  eminence  and  what 
power  I  have  gained  in  the  teeth  of  all  arrayed  against  me. 
And  you  know,  as  we  stand  here  to-night,  that  I  will  never 
live  for  one  taste  of  Defeat.  I  don't  complain;  I  don't  23lead 
— not  I!  You  are  acting  fairly  enough.  Only  put  no  dis- 
guise on  it.  Let  us  understand  one  another.  You  will  take 
your  vengeance,  of  course,  since  you  have  got  one;  but  you 
may  be  sure  as  we  both  live  to-night  that  you  shall  only  find 
my  dead  body  to  give  to  the  public  to  kick  and  to  strip. 
That's  all.  It  is  good  Hebrew  law — a  life  for  a  life.  You've 
fair  title  to  follow  it.  Only,  know  what  I  mean  to  do;  I  shall 
die  in  an  hour. ' ' 

There  was  no  quiver  in  his  voice;  there  was  no  tone  of  en- 
treaty: he  spoke  resolutely,  coolly;  but  to  the  uttermost  iota 
he  meant  what  he  said,  and  his  own  death  was  as  sure  as 
though  he  plunged  a  knife  in  his  entrails.  Chandos  shuddered 
as  he  heard.  All  his  life  through,  the  web  of  Trevenna's 
sublety  had  encompassed  him,  and  it  netted  him  now.  He 
had  a  justice  to  do,  in  which  the  rights  of  the  world  met  the 
rights  of  his  own  vengeance;  and  by  it  he  would  drive  out 
this  man,  who  claimed  the  same  blood  as  his  own,  to  a  suicide's 
grave,  by  it  he  was  made  to  stand  and  to  feel  as  a  murderer! 
He  knew  that  the  hour  which  should  find  his  traitor  self- 


58,2  CSANDOS. 

slaughtered  would  be  but  late  and  meet  chastisement  of  a  life- 
time's triumphant  guilt;  and  the  burden  of  that  slaughter  was 
flung  on  his  hands,  so  that,  giving  to  justice  its  course  and  its 
due,  he  was  weighted  with  the  life  that  through  justice  would 
fall. 

"  So  be  it!"  he  said,  in  his  throat;  "  if  you  die  for  your 
crimes,  what  is  that  to  me?  Murderers  die  for  theirs;  your 
brute  hatred  has  been  viler  than  any  murderer's  single  stroke." 

"  Pei'haps  so!  AVell,  you  can  hang  me,  when  I  am  dead,  as 
high  as  Hainan;  but  you  shall  never  pillory  me  alive.  You 
give  me  my  death-warrant,  and  I  dare  say  it's  just  enough; 
only  remember  it's  the  blood  of  the  man  that  lies  yonder  you 
shed,  and  hut  for  that  blood  you  had  never  had  my  hate  or 
my  envy.  You  are  just;  you'll  be  just  even  to  me,  and  put 
so  much  down  to  the  credit  side  when  you  tell  the  world  of  my 
wickedness.  Farewell!  If  you  are  to  reign  again  at  Claren- 
cieux,  tell  your  heir,  when  you  have  one,  that  the  Bastard  of 
your  House  beat  you  hollow  till  he  was  betrayed  by  a  Jew's 
iiuke,  and  that  even  when  he  was  beaten  he  showed  himself 
still  of  your  cursed  race,  and  died — game  to  the  last.*' 

There  was  not  a  touch  of  entreaty  or  of  shrinking  in  the 
firm,  contemptuous  words;  he  laughed  shortly,  as  he  ended 
them,  and  turned  away.  The  caustic  mirth,  the  ironic 
audacity  of  his  temper,  found  a  terrible  satire  in  his  own  fall, 
and  triumphed  still  in  the  thought  of  how  long  and  how  proudly 
he  had  vanquished  the  race  against  which  he  had  pitted  himself. 

Chandos  stood  motionless;  his  forehead  was  wet  with  dew; 
he  breathed  heavily  in  the  gray  twilight,  out  of  whose  mists 
the  beauty  of  the  great  pile  where  his  father's  ashes  lay  rose 
dim  and  shadowy,  and  mighty  as  the  dead  it  guarded. 

"Just  to  the  end." 

The  dying  words  of  the  Hebrew's  blessing  came  back  upon 
his  memory.  Which  was  justice — to  yield  up  the  traitor  to  the 
death  he  merited  and  the  obloquy  he  had  earned,  or  to  re- 
member the  birth  and  the  breeding  that  from  its  first  hour  had 
stained  and  warped  tlie  strong  tree  which  without  their  fatal 
bias  might  have  grown  up  straight  and  goodly  and  rich  in 
fruit?  Vengeance  lay  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  to  slay  with 
or  to  spare.  With  the  dawn  this  man  would  perish — perish 
justly  in  late-dealt  retribution  for  a  long  career  of  guilt,  of 
treachery,  of  base  and  pitiless  hate.  He  merited  a  felon's 
death;  let  him  drift  on  to  a  suicide's! 

Trevenna  stood  a  moment,  in  his  eyes  the  red,  angry  fire  of 
a  chained  hound  still  burning,  but  on  liis  close-braced  lips  no 
tremor — all  the  courage,  all  the  insolence,  all  the  resolve  thai 


CHAKD03.  683 

were  in  him  summoned  to  meet  the  awful  chastisement  that 
had  suddenly  fallen  upon  him  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power 
and  his  pride. 

"  Beau  sire,"  he  said,  with  a  stanch  bravery  in  him  to  the 
last,  and  that  pride  of  intellect  which  in  its  arrogance  was  far 
above  vanity  or  egotism,  "  there  is  not  one  of  your  haughty 
line  who  will  beat  the  mongrel  for  power!  You  and  your 
people  were  born  crowned;  but  I  have  won  my  diadem  out  of 
the  mud  of  the  sewers  and  in  the  face  of  the  whole  world  set 
against  me.  You  have  nothing  so  grand  in  all  your  princely 
escutcheon  as  that.  Pshaw!  if  a  dying  Hebrew  had  not  turned 
virtuous  and  played  king's  evidence,  I'd  have  had  my  grave 
by  Philip  Chandos  yonder,  and  been  even  with  him  to  my 
death.  You  have  a  fine  vengeance  at  last!  Few  men  kill  as 
much  brain  as  you'll  kill  in  me  I" 

He  motioned  his  right  hand  toward  the  Abbey,  and  turned 
away — to  die  before  the  dawn.  The  action  was  slight,  and 
had  no  supplication  in  it;  but  it  was  very  eloquent— eloquent 
as  were  the  words  in  their  contemptuous  self-vindication,  their 
insolence  of  self-homage. 

Chandos  involuntarily  made  a  gesture  to  arrest  him. 

"  Wait!'' 

The  word  had  the  command  of  a  monarch  in  it.  His  head 
sunk  on  his  hands,  his  whole  frame  quivered;  one  who  had 
brotherhood  with  him  went  out  to  lie  dead  with  the  breaking 
of  day. 

"Oh,  God!"  he  moaned,  in  a  mortal  suffering.  "  I  cai^ 
not  send  you  to  your  death;  and  yet — " 

And  yet — his  whole  soul  clung  to  the  justice  that  would  strikfi* 
the  traitor  down  in  his  crime:  half  a  life-time  of  torture  claimed 
its  meet  requital.     To  spare  this  man  passed  his  strength. 

Trevenna  mutely  watched  him  without  a  sign  of  supplica- 
tion, but  with  an  acrid,  ruthless  hate — the  hate  of  a  Cain  who 
saw  his  brother  rise  from  the  murderous  blow  that  had  struck 
him  to  the  earth,  and  deal  back  into  his  own  heart  the  fratri- 
cidal stroke. 

Chandos  stood  with  his  head  dropped  on  his  chest,  hia 
breathing  loud  and  fast;  to  let  go  his  vengeance  was  harder 
than  to  part  with  his  own  life.  The  wrongs  of  years  that 
seemed  endless  in  their  desolation  bound  him  to  it  with  bands 
of  iron.  Yet  he  knew  that,  if  he  took  it,  his  foe  would  die 
ere  the  sun  rose- -die  in  his  guilt,  cursing  God  and  men,  as  ho 
had  once  bidden  his  own  existence  end. 

There  was  a  long,  unbroken  silence. 

A  justice  higher,  purer,  loftier  than  the  justice  of  revenge 


584  CHANDOS. 

stirred  in  him;  a  light  like  the  coming  of  the  day  came  on  his 
face.  He  remained  true  to  the  vow  of  the  days  of  his  youth, 
atid,  though  men  had  abandoned  him,  he  forsook  not  them 
nor  their  God.  He  was  king  over  himself — sovereign  over  hi£ 
passions.  He  lifted  his  eyes  and  lookel  at  his  betrayer;  there 
was  that  in  the  gaze  of  whicli  Shakespeare  thought  wlien  he 
wrote,  "  This  look  of  thine  will  hurl  my  soul  from  heaven!" 
It  spoke  wider  than  words;  it  pierced  more  deeply  than  a 
death-thrust. 

"  I  give  you  your  life,"  he  said,  briefly;  "  learn  remorse  in 
it,  if  you  can!  I  will  spare  you  to  the  world;  it  will  be  venge- 
ance enough  that  I  know  your  shame.  Go — and  siiow  to 
others  hereafter  the  mercy  you  need  now." 

The  words  fell  gravely,  gently,  on  the  stillness.  Over  his 
enemy's  brow  a  red  flush  of  shame  leaped  suddenly,  his  firm 
limbs  trembled,  he  shook  for  a  moment  like  a  reed  under  the 
condemnation  which  alone  bade  him  go  and  sin  no  more. 
Of  mercy  he  had  never  thought;  as  he  had  never  known  it,  so 
he  had  never  hoped  it.  It  pierced  and  beat  him  down  as  no 
revenge  could  ever  have  power  to  do;  under  it  he  suffered  what 
he  had  never  suffered.  While  their  lives  should  last,  he  knew 
that  bond  of  pardon  would  be  held  unbroken;  and  for  once 
he  was  vile  and  loathsome  in  his  own  sight. 

'^  Damn  you  I"  he  said,  fiercely,  while  his  white  lips  trem- 
bled, "  you  are  greater  than  I  at  the  last!  For  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  I  wish  to  God  I  had  not  harmed  you!" 

In  tlie  savage  words,  as  they  choked  in  their  utterance,  was 

the  only  pang  of    remorse   that  John   Trevenna  had   ever 

known. 

******* 

In  the  vast  shadowy  space  of  the  porphyry  chamber  Chan- 
dos  stood,  with  the  white  luster  of  starlight  sleeping  at  his 
feet,  and  the  glories  of  his  race  made  liis  once  more.  In  the 
silence  that  was  only  broken  by  the  dreamy  distant  sound  of 
many  waters,  he  looked  upon  liis  birthright — looked  as  the 
long- banished  alone  look  on  the  land  for  whose  beauty  they 
have  been  an-hungered  through  a  deadly  travail,  for  whose 
mere  fragrance  they  have  been  athirst  through  the  scorch  of 
solitude  of  desert  wastes. 

Every  sigh  of  forest  leafage  came  to  him  like  a  familiar 
voice;  every  breath  of  woodland  air  touched  his  forehead  like 
a  caress  of  one  beloved ;  the  odor  of  the  grasses,  as  the  deer 
trod  them  out,  was  sweet  to  him  as  joy;  the  free  fresh  wind 
seemed  bearing  back  his  youtli;  the  desire  of  his  eyes  was 
given  back  to  him,  the  passion  of  his  heart  was  granted  him. 


CHAKDOS.  585 

He  gazed,  and  felt  as  though  no  gaze  were  long  enough,  on 
all  for  which  his  sight  had  ached  in  blindness  through  so  many 
years  of  absence;  and,  where  he  stood,  with  the  life  that  he 
loved  folded  in  his  arms  and  gathered  to  his  heart,  his  head 
was  bowed,  his  lips  trembled  on  hers,  his  strength  broke  down; 
the  sentence  of  severance  fell  off  him  for  evermore. 

Through  the  hush  of  the  night  a  murmur  like  the  sough  of 
the  sea  swelled  through  the  silence — the  murmur  of  a  great 
multitude  whose  joy  lay  deep  as  tears.  It  was  the  welcome 
of  a  people. 

The  sound  rose,  hushed  b}'  the  death  which  had  given  them 
back  their  lord,  through  the  stillness  of  the  night,  through 
the  endless  aisles  of  forest,  reaching  the  halls  of  the  great  race 
whose  sovereignty  had  returned  and  whose  name  was  once 
more  in  the  land. 

Where  he  stood,  they  saw  him;  his  eyes  rested  on  them  in 
the  soft  shadows  of  the  night,  and  his  hands  were  stretched  to 
them  in  silence — a  silence  that  spoke  beyond  woi'ds,  and  fell  in 
turn  on  them,  upon  the  vast  throngs  that  looked  upward  to 
his  face,  unseen  so  long,  uj^on  the  strong  men  who  wept  as 
children,  upon  the  aged  who  were  content  to  lay  them  down 
and  die  because  the  cue  they  loved  had  come  to  them  from 
his  exile;  and  that  hour  repaid  him  for  his  agony. 

Ue  had  dealt  with  his  enemy,  and  reached  a  mercy  that  the 
"world  would  never  honor,  laid  down  a  vengeance  that  the 
world  would  never  know.  No  homage  would  ever  greet  his 
sacrifice;  when  death  should  come  to  him  he  must  fall  beneath 
the  stroke  with  that  victory  untold,  that  foe  unarraigned.  He 
would  see  his  traitor  triumj^b,  and  lift  up  no  voice  to  accuse 
him;  he  would  behold  men  worship  their  false  god,  and  hold 
back  his  hand  from  the  righteous  blow.  But  through  bitter- 
ness he  had  cleaved  to  truth,  through  desolation  he  had  fol- 
lowed justice,  and  while  men  forsook  him  he  had  remained 
constant  to  them,  constant  to  himself.  He  had  followed  the 
words  of  the  Greek  poet;  he  had  been  "  faithful  to  the  dreams 
of  his  youth,^'  and  peace  was  with  him  at  the  end. 

In  the  hush  of  the  night,  with  the  sanctity  of  a  people's 
Jove  upon  him,  the  bitterness  of  the  j^ast  died;  the  crucifixion 
of  his  passions  lost  its  anguish;  the  serenity  of  a  pardon  hard 
to  yicdd,  yet  god-like  when  attained,  came  to  him  with  the  self- 
con(|ui'st  he  had  reached,  and  the  promise  of  the  future  rosD 
before  him — 

"  Even  as  the  bow  which  God  hath  bent  in  heaven." 

THE    END.        4 


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In  the  Counselor's  House 
Marlitt. 

In   the   Golden   Days.     By   Edna 
Lyall. 

In  the  Heart  of  the  Storm.    By 
Maxwpll  (irev. 

In  the  Schilling'scourt.    By  E.  Mar- 
litt. 

It  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend. 
By  Charles  Reade. 

Ivanihoe.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Jack's    Courtship.     By    W.    Clark 

Russell. 
Jack  Hinton.    By  Charles  Lever. 

Jane  Eyre.    By  Charlotte  Bronte. 

John    Halifax,    Gentleman.     By 

Miss  Mulock. 
Joshua.    By  George  Ebers. 

Kenilworth.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Kidnapped.  By  Robert  L.  Stevenson. 

Kit  and  Kitty.    By  R.  D.  Blackmore. 

Kith  and  Kin.    By  Jessie  FotherRill. 

Knickerbocker's  History  of  New- 
York.    By  W.  Irviner. 
Knight  Errant.    By  Edna  Lyall. 

Lamplighter,    The.      By  Maria   S. 

Cumiiiiiif^s. 
Lady  With  the   Rubier,     By    E. 

.Alarlitt. 
Last  Days  of  Pompeii.    By  Bulwer- 

Lytton. 
Last  of  the  Barons.     By   Bulwer- 

Lytton. 
Last  of  the  Mohicans.    By  James 

Feuimore  Cnuper. 
Life    of   Christ.      By    Frederic  W. 

Farrar. 
Light  of  Asia,  The.    By  Sir  Edwin 

Arnold. 
Little  Dorrit.    By  Chj,rles  Dickens. 

Longfellow's  Poems.    (Early.) 

Lorna  Doone.    By  R.  D.  Blackmore. 

Louise  de  \%  Valliere.     By  Alex- 

andri'  Dumas. 
Love  Me  Little,  Love  Me  Long. 

By  Chi'rlcs  Reade. 


Lover    or    Friend  P     By   Rosa  N 

Carey. 
Lucile.     By  Owen  Meredith. 

Maid  of  Sker.    By  R.  D.  Blackmore. 

Man  and  Wife.    By  AVilkie  Collins. 

Man  in  the  Iron  Mask.  By  Alex- 
andre Dumas. 

Martin  Chiizzlewit.  By  Charles 
Pickens. 

Mary  Anerley.  By  R.  D.  Black- 
more. 

Mary  St.  John.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 

Master  of  Ballantrae,  The.    By  R. 

L.  Stevenson, 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies,  The. 

By  (i.  IW.  Fenn. 
Masterman    Ready.     By   Captain 

;\Iarryat. 
Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

Translated  by  Long. 
Merle's  Crusade.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 

Micah  Clarke.    By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Michael  Strogofif.     By  Jules  Verne. 

Middlemarch.    By  George  Eliot. 

Midshipman    Easy.     By    Captain 

M;iriyat. 
Mill  on  the  Floss.    By  George  Eliot. 

Molly  Bawn.    By  "  The  Duchess." 

Moonstone,  The.    By  Wilkie  Collins. 

Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse.    By 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Mysterious  Island,  The.    By  Jules 

Verne. 
Natural    Law    in    the    Spiritual 

World.     By  Drummond. 
Nellie's    Mertiories.     By   Rosa   N. 

Carey. 
Newcomes,    The.      By  WilM,«im  M. 

Thackeray. 
Nicholas    Nickleby.     By    Charles 

Dickens. 
Nir.ety-Three.    By  Victor  Hugo. 

No  Name.    By  Wilkie  Collins. 

Not  Like  Other  Girls.    By  Rosa  N. 

Carey. 
Old    Curiosity  Shop.     By  Charles 

Dickens. 
Old   Mam'selle's   Secret.      By  E. 

Marlitt. 
Old  Myddleton's  Money-  By  Maty 

Cecil  Hay. 


For  sale  hy  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postjiaid  on  receipt  of  price  bff 
the  vubliaher.  A.-.  X-  HUB't.  97  Meade  Street,  New  York. 


.\  LIST  OF  BURT'S  HOME   LIBRARY. 

THREE  HUNDRED  AND  TEN  TITLES, 
Uniform  Cloth  Binding.    Price  75  Cents  Per  Copy, 
Oliver  Twist.    By  Charles  Dickens. 
Only  a  Word.    By  George  Ebers. 
Only  the  Governess.     By  Eosa  N 


ly  the  Governess 

Carey. 
On  the  Heig-hts.    By  Berthold  Auer- 

bach. 
iDrigin    of    Species.      By    Charles 

Darwin. 
(Other  "Worlds   Than  Ours.      By 

Richard  Proctor. 
Our  Bessie.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 

Our  Mutual  Friend.     By  Charles 

Dictceus. 
X'air  of  Blue  Eyes,  A.    By  Thomas 

Hardy . 
Past    and    Present.     By    Thomas 

Carlyle. 
Pathfinder,  The.     By  James  Feni- 

Hiore  Cooper. 
Pendennis.     By  William  M.  Thacke- 


Pere  Goriot. 


By  Honore  de  Balzac. 
By 


Phantom    Rickshaw,    The. 

Rudyard  Kipliiitr. 
Phra  the  PhcBnioian.      By  Edwin 

L.  Aruold. 
Picciola.    By  X.  B.  Saintine. 

Pickwick  Papers.   By  Chas.  Dickens 

Pilgrim's  Prog-ress.    By  John  Bun- 

yan. 
Pilot,    The.     By    James    Fenimore 

Cooppr. 
Pioneers,  The.    By  James  Fenimore 

Cooper. 
Prairie,  The.     By  James  Fenimore 

Cooper. 
Pride    and    Prejudico.      By   Jane 

.\usten. 
Prime  Minister,  The.    By  Anthony 

TroUopp, 
Princess  of  the  Moor.    By  E.  Mar- 

litt. 
Princess  of  Thule,  A.    By  William 

Blade. 
iProfessor,  The.     By  Charlotte 

BroQte. 
Put  Yourself  in  His  Place.     By 

Charlps  Reade. 
Gueen  Hortense.     By  Louisa  Muhl- 

ba.,-h. 
€lueenie's  Whim.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey 

Ralph  the  Heir.  By  Anthony  Trol- 
lope. 

Red  Rover.  By  James  Fenimore 
Cooper. 

Reproach  of  Annesley.  By  Max- 
well Grey. 


Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.  By  Ik 
Marvel. 

Rhoda  Fleming.  By  George  Mere- 
dith. 

Ride  to  Khiva,  A.  By  Captain  Fred 
Biirnaby. 

Rienzi.    By  Bulwer-Lytton. 

Robert  Ord's  Atonement.  By  Rosa 

N.  Carey. 
Robinson  Crusoe.    By  Daniel  Defoe. 

Rob  Roy.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man. 

By  Octave  Feuillet.. 
Romance    of  Two   Worlds.     By 

Marie  CoreUi. 
Romola.    By  George  EUot. 

Rory  O'More.    By  Samuel  Lover. 

Saint  Michael.    By  E.  Werner. 

Sartor  Resartus.    By  Thos.  Carlyle. 

Schonberg-Cotta  Family.  By  Mrs. 

Andrew  Charles. 
Scarlet  Letter,  The.    By  Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 
Scottish  Chiefs.    By  jane  Porter. 

Search  for  Basil  Lyndhurst.    By 

Rosa  N.  Carey. 
Second  Wife,  The.    By  E.  Marlitt. 

Self-Help.    By  Samuel  Smiles. 

Sense  and  Sensibility.     By  Jane 

Austen. 
Sesame  and  Lilies.    By  John  Rus- 

kin. 
Shadow  of  a  Crime.    By  Hall  Caine. 

Shadow  of  the  Sw^ord.    By  Robert 

Buchanan, 
Shirley.    By  Charlotte  Bronte. 

Silas  Marner.    By  George  Eliot. 


By 


Silence    of  Dean  Maitland. 

Maxwell  Grey. 
Sin  of  Joost  Avelingh.   By  Maarten 

Maartens. 
Sir  Gibbie.    By  George  Macdonald. 

Sketch-Book,  The.    By  Washington 

IrviuK. 
Social    Departure,  A.      By  Sarah 

Jeanette  Duncan. 
Soldiers  Three,   etc.    By  Rudyard 

Kipling. 
Springhaven.    By  R.  D.  Blackmore. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  pric»  l^ 
the  publisher,  A.  L.  BURT,  97  Reade  Street,  New  York. 


A  LIST  OF  BURT  S  HOME   LIBRARY. 


THREE  HUNDRED  AND  TEN  TITLES. 
Uniform  Cloth  Binding:.    Price  75  Cents  Per  Copy. 

James     Fenimore 


By 


Spy     The. 

Cooper. 
Saint  Katharine's  by  the  Tower. 

By  Walter  Besant, 
Story  of   an  African  Farm.    By 

Olive  Schreiiier. 
Strathmore.    By  "Ouida." 

Study  in  Scarlet,  A.     By  A.  Conan 

Doyle. 
Swiss  Family  Robinson.    By  Jean 

Rudolph  Wyss. 
Tale   of   Two  Cities.     By  Charles 

Dickers. 
Tales  from  Shakespeare.  By  Chas. 

and  Mary  Lamb. 
Talisman,  The.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Tartarin  of  Tarascon.  By  Alphonse 
Daudet. 

Tempest  Tossed.  By  Theodore  Til- 
ton. 

Ten  Years  Later.  By  Alexandre 
Dumas. 

Terrible  Temptation,  A.  By  Chas. 
Reade. 

Thaddeus  of  Warsaw.  By  Jane 
Porter. 

Thelma.    By  Marie  Corelli. 

Thousand  Miles  Up  the  Nile.    By 

Amelia  B.  Edwards. 
Three  Guardsmen.    By  Alexandre 

Dumas. 
Three  Men  in  a  Boat.    By  Jerome 

K.  Jerome. 
Toilers  of  the  Sea.    By  Victor  Hugo. 

Thrift.    By  Samuel  Smiles. 

Tom  Brown  at  Oxford.  By  Thomas 

Hufrlies. 
Tom    Brown's    Schooldays.      By 

Thomas  Hugrhes. 
Tom  Burke  of  "  Ours."   By  Charles 

Lever. 
Tom   Cringle's   Logr,     By   Michael 

Scott. 
Tour   of    the   "World    in    Eighty 

Days,  A.     P>,v  Jules  Verne. 
Treasure  Island.    By  Robert  Louis 

Stcvt'nsoii. 
80,000  Leagrues  Under  the  Sea. 

By  Jules  V.-rne. 
Twenty  Years  After.  By  Alexandre 

Dumas. 
Twice   Told   Tales.     By  Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 
Two   Admirals.      By   James    Feni- 

iiiiire  Codpcr. 
Two  Chiefs  of  Dunboy.    By  James 

A.  Froude. 
Two  on  a  Tower.    By  Thos.  Hardy. 


Two  Years  Before  the  Masto 

R.  H.  Dana,  Jr. 
Uarda.    By  George  Ebers. 


By 


Uncle  Max. 


By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 

By  Harriet 
By  De 


Uncle   Tom's   Cabin 
Beecher  Stowe. 

Undine  and  Other  Tales 
La  Motte  Fouque. 

Vanity  Fair.  By  William  M.  Thack- 
eray. 

Vendetta.    By  Marie  Corelli. 

Very  Hard  Cash.    By  Charlne  Reade. 

Vicar  of  Wakefield.  By  Oliver 
Groldsmith. 

Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.  By  Alex- 
andre Dumas. 

Villette.    By  Charlotte  Bronte. 

Virginians,  The.      By  William  M. 

Thackeray. 
Vivian  Grey.    By  Benjamin  DlsraelL 

Water  Witch,  The .    By  James  Feni- 
more Cooper. 
Waverley.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Wee  Wifie.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 

Westward  Ho  1     By  Charles  Kings- 
lev. 
We  Two.    By  Edna  Lyall. 

What's  Mine's  Mine.     By  George 

Macdonald. 
When  a  Man's  Single.     By  J.  M. 

Barrie. 
White  Company,  The.  By  A.  Conan 

Doyle. 
Wide,    Wide    World.     By    Susan 

Warner. 
Whittier's  Poems.    (Early.) 

Widow  Lerouge,  The.  By  Emile 
Gaboriau. 

Window  in  Thrums.  By  James  M. 
Barrie. 

Wing  and  Wing.  By  James  Feni- 
more Cooper. 

Woman  in  White,  The.  By  Wilkie 
Collins. 

Won  by  Waiting.     By  Edna  Lyall.  ' 

Wooed  and  Married.     By  Rosa  N. 

( 'arej  . 
Wooing  O't.    By  Mrs.  Alexander. 

World  Went  Very  Well   Then, 

The.    W.  Besant. 
Wormwood.    By  Marie  Corelli. 

Wreck   of  the  Grosvenor,   The. 

By  W.  Clark  Russell. 
Zenobia.    By  William  Ware. 


Fcf  S'lle  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  prie*  by 
tfie  publisher,  A-  Z-  JipJtT;  97  ffeade  Street,  New  York, 


THE  HENTY  SERiES  FOR  BOYS 

Uniform  Cloth   Binding.    Price  ^l.OO. 

"  Wlierever  English  is  spoken  one  imagines  that  Mr.  Henty  s  name  is  known. 
One  cannot  enter  a  schooh-oom  or  look  at  a  boy's  bookshelf  without  seeing 
half  a  dozen  of  the  famous  volumes.  Mr.  Henty  is  no  doubt  the  most  successful 
vriter  for  boys,  and  the  one  to  whose  new  volumes  they  look  forward  every 
Christmas  with  most  pleasure." — Revietv  of  Reviews. 

Bonnie  Prince  Charlie;  A  Tale  of  Fontenoy  and  CuUoden.  By  G.  A. 
Henty.    "With  Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

With  Clive  in  India  ;  or,  The  Beginnings  of  an  Empire.  By  G.  A.  Henty. 
With  Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

The  Dragron  and  the  Raven;  or.  The  Days  of  King  Alfred.  By  G.  A 
Henty.    With  Illustrations  by  U.  J.  Staniland,  R.I.    Price  $1.00. 

The  Youngr  Carthaginian:  A  Story  of  the  Times  of  Hannibal.  By  G.  A. 
Henty.     With  Illustrations  by  C.  J.  Staniland,  R.I.    Price  $1.00. 

The  Lion  of  the  North:  A  Tale  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  the  Wars  of 
Religion.     By  G.  A.  Henty.    With  Illustrations  by  John  fcjchonberg. 

"With  Lee  in  Virginia:  A  Story  of  the  American  Civil  War.  By  G.  A. 
Henty.     With  Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

By  England's  Aid;  or.  The  Freeing  of  the  Netherlands  (1585-1604).  By 
G.  A.  Henty.     With  Illustrations  by  Alfred  Pearse.    Price  $1.00. 

By  Pike  and  Dyke:  A  Tale  of  the  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  By  G.  A. 
Henty.    With  Illustrations  by  Maynard  Brown.    Price  $1.00. 

Captain  Bayley's  Heir:  A  Tale  of  the  Gold  Fields  of  California.  By 
G.  A.  Henty.     With  lllusti-ations  by  H.  M.  Paget.    Price  $1.00. 

TJnder  Drake's  Flag:  A  Tale  of  the  Spanish  Main.  By  G.  A.  Henty.  With 
Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

In  Freedom's  Cause:  A  Story  of  Wallace  and  Bruce.  By  G.  A.  Henty. 
With  Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.     Price  $1.00. 

In  the  Reign  of  Terror:  The  Adventures  of  a  Westminster  Boy.  By  G.  A. 
Henty.    Witli  Illustrations  by  John  Schonberg.    Price  $1.00. 

True  to  the  Old  Flag:  A  Tale  of  the  American  War  of  Independence.  With 
18  page  Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

With  Wolfe  in  Canada;  or.  The  Winning  of  a  Continent.  With  12  page. 
Illustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.     Price  $1.00. 

By  Right  of  Conquest;  or.  With  Cortez  in  Mexico.  With  6  page  Illustra- 
tions  by  W.  S.  Stacey.     Price  $1.00. 

St.  George  for  England:  A  Tale  of  Cressy  and  Poitiers.  With  8  page  II- 
iustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.     Price  $1.00. 

The  Bravest  of  the  Brave:  With  Peterborough  in  Spain.  With  8  page 
Illustrations  by  H.  M.  Paget.     Price  $1 .00. 

For  Name  and  Fame;  or.  Through  Afghan  Passes.  With  8  page  Illustra- 
tions by  Gordon  Browne.     Price  $1.00. 

The  Cat  of  Bubastes:  A  Story  of  Ancient  Egypt.  With  5  page  Illustrations 
by  J.  R.  Weguelin.    Price  $1.00. 

For  the  Temple:  A  Tale  of  the  Fall  of  Jerusalem.  With  10  page  Illustra- 
tions by  S.  J.  Solomon.    Price  $1.00. 

The  Lion  of  St.  Mark:  A  Story  of  Venice  in  the  Fourteenth  Century.  With 
10  page  niustrations  by  Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

By  Sheer  Pluck:  A  Tale  of  the  Ashanti  War.  With  8  page  Illustrations  by 
Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

A  Final  Reckoning:  A  Tale  of  Bush  Life  in  Australia.  With  8  page  Illus- 
trations by  W.  B.  Wollen.    Price  $1.00. 

Facing  Death:  A  Tale  of  the  Coal  Mines.  With  8  page  Illustrations  by 
Gordon  Browne.    Price  $1.00. 

Maori  and  Settler:  A  Story  of  the  New  Zealand  War.  With  5  page  Illus- 
trations by  Alfred  Pearse.    Price  $1.00. 

For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lisher, A.  L,.  KURT,  97  Reade  Street,  New  York. 


^  ^^ 


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